Quote:
Originally Posted by MattyC
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).
|
You are focusing too much on the precise numbers. I picked 10 million out of a hat, and was not using it as a baseline representation of the Canadian population of teenagers.
I was merely illustrating that an increased rate of mental illness causes an increased burden on society. What that number ends up being will invariably depend on the population affected.
The flippant disregard for mental illness is troubling. It's like saying in regard to cigarettes "well, some cigarette caused cancers are less awful than others."
The point is the action causes the result, and while the result has varying degrees of impact to the individual and society, why are we sanctioning something that universally has a negative aggregate impact on society?
Personally, I don't think I should have to be responsible as a tax payer for paying for pot heads who increase their risk of mental illness. But perhaps my lack of socialist tendencies is clouding my opinion.