[Joint]

I skipped some of the article, but here's my take:

Marijuana Anonymous, if anything like AA, is bullshit. It's nothing more than indoctrination using massive peer pressure. You're conditioned to buy everything they say, and it's BS.

Second, it's not uncommon for a drug offender to be given the choice between jailtime and rehab. Guess what they choose? So of course numbers go up.

Also that pie chart doesn't help much. It may just indicate that alcohol abuses has gone down, which changes the percentage of the others. Or marijuana has increased slightly, with others going down. I want hard numbers. I skim-read it and didn't see any, maybe I missed it. You know how they say "Statistics can be used to prove anything?" Thats how they do it. For all we know, the only change could have been fewer alcohol abusers.

//edit

"Marijuana's rise in the ranks of problem drugs may reflect a big spike in usage... 14.6 million in 2004 from 10.1 million in 1996"

US population 1996: 265M -> 3.8% usage rate
US population 2004: 293M -> 4.9% usage rate

A measly increase of only 1.1%!

THE WOOL IS CONSTANTLY BEING PULLED OVER OUR EYES. FUCK THE MEDIA. THIS ARTICLE IS SENSATIONALIZING A 1.1% INCREASE IN MARIJUANA USAGE. IGNORANCE IS POWER.

[Note: Although only an additional 1.1% of the population is supposedly using marijuana, it's easy to spin it to say that there's been a 25% or so increase in marijuana usage, because there's roughly 1.25 times *the percentage* as many weed smokers as before... it's all in how you present your data, which is why you should be skeptical of even the most seemingly un-biased sources]