City Desk » cocaine

Drivers Are Boozing Less But Toking Up Is High, Feds Say

Christine MacDonald — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:33:35 +0000

Driving while drunk has fallen dramatically over the last few decades but drug use is much more popular, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

According to the latest NHTSA roadside survey, drivers caught with blood alcohol concentrations above the legal limit fell to 2.2 percent in 2007, compared to 7.5 percent in 1975.

Until 2007, the feds were only equipped to measure boozing - 0.08 blood alcohol concentrations or higher mean you are legally drunk. But now, the NHTSA has spiffy new screening techniques that detect drug use too. Of the nighttime weekend drivers tested in 2007, 16.3 percent were on drugs – mostly marijuana, with cocaine in second place, followed by prescription pills, the NHTSA says.

Yeah, but how scientific is a survey of 300 stops nationwide? What about all those others who weren’t caught up in the dragnets, would they be more likely to be drugged or smashed? And, the NHTSA has segregated out the "nighttime weekend" druggies, while the boozing data apparently includes stops at all times of day and night. Perhaps the announcement's true intent is to put drug users on warning that toking and tweaking no longer goes undetected.

Fuego/Frio: Women, Women, Women!

City Desk — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:04:05 +0000

This week's episode—a must-watch!—centers on the Examiner's super-late scoop on the whole "D.C. ranks number 1 in cocaine use" thing (hey, even we got there first!). Metro Weekly, meanwhile, gets dinged four times (count 'em!) for a.) an "ugly cover"; b.) a weak corrections policy; c.) an overly anonymous scene page; and d.) a shamefully male-centric masthead.

Inspirational quote of the week: "Get a woman on staff...women, women, women!"

D.C. No. 1 in Cocaine Use

Andrew Beaujon — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:38:36 +0000

The news that D.C. tops the nation in cocaine use, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, is hard to process. It's like finding out that Los Angelenos read the most books or that Tampa has the fewest back tattoos.

We're Top 5 for marijuana and binge-drinking, which should surprise no one who's bought a jumbo slice on a weekend night, but check out these numbers:

Vermont tops the nation in marijuana use (2.5 percent of people 12 and over get high there), North Dakota flattens all comers in binge drinking (58.1 percent of 18-25-year-olds and 28.7 of folks 26 and up). Cocaine use in D.C. though, is at 5.1 percent, which means there's a reasonable chance someone in your office is going to think s/he is really, really smart and good-looking later this evening.

Photo of someone pretending to snort Chex mix with a Slim Jim (which is more what you'd expect of D.C., drug-use wise) by Flickr user decaf