Quote:
Originally Posted by IliketoPuck
So hypothetically then, based on your numbers Woob.
Assume a controlled population of 10,000,000 (arbitrary number) regular teenagers.
7/1000 = .007 * 10MM = 70,000 people with a chance to manifest normally.
42/1000 = 0.042 * 10MM = 420,000 people with a chance to manifest using marijuana heavily.
This article discusses some of the costs and burdens placed on society in Canada of mental health issues:
http://strategy.mentalhealthcommissi...estment-en.pdf
There looks to be a few different numbers thrown around in that study of the various costs, but lets use a conservative estimate of $150,000 of incremental lifetime costs to the medical system.
Keep in mind this does not consider the additional burdens placed on families, friends, employers, etc.
420,000 - 70,000 = 350,000 incremental mental health issues experienced in the controlled population of 10,000,000.
350,000 * 150,000 = $52.5Bn in incremental costs.
Pretty interesting when $ values start to be assigned. Obviously this is very rudimentary, but the premise is valid. |
The premise is valid, but filling in the rudimentary aspects are where it can start to fall apart.
Canada's population under 20 is about 7,800,000, and that includes people over 18. And people aged 15-19 is under 3 million (which is probably the group most likely to begin smoking). It'd be nice if 14 was included. Anyone starting earlier than that is a HUGE outlier IMO. So I would venture to guess that the population at risk is closer to 5 million.
Your math also assumes that EVERYONE in this subset begins to smoke, which is obviously not the case (if the graph from a few pages regarding Colorado is applied, only about 6-10% of youths smoke weed).
And then, on top of that, while the statistics show a relationship, it is still "a chance" Not everyone in that final subset will end up with a mental health issue.
And, while mental health is no joke, were talking about a range from minor depression to full on psychosis. Only a few of these things require full-blown monitoring and pose a danger to other people.
Lastly, I think you have to assume that improved education programs will weed out a good chunk of kids who may have otherwise started. IE I never started smoking cigarettes because that black lung the DARE people showed us is burnt into my brain. But no one ever went into the negative effects of weed (which I didn't start smoking until I was 19), and even though logic dictates smoking anything is going to do something at least similar to your lungs, much of the information at the time was that "it's really not that bad, and certainly not as bad as cigs" the latter is true, the former, not so much.
Not to mention that a good chunk of tax revenue will be dedicated to education and mental health programs, so that also offsets your final number, and might even end up being a net benefit (ie, even though we may spending more, we overall spend less because of the revenue generated).