Thursday, December 24, 2009

Less of One Substance, More of Another

Tequila sales dropped by 20 percent in 2009. But Excélsior, citing the latest National Survey on Addiction, reports that consumption of drugs in Mexico increased by 50 percent from 2002 to 2006. (Actually, the headline says that, but the article says that it's the number of addicts that jumped by half. Color me confused.)

I'm not quite sure why this is news; the survey was released in September of 2008. I'm also not sure where the 50 percent figure comes from; this report (also from Excélsior) says that the number of drug users jumped by about 20 percent. It doesn't mention the gross national consumption (or addicts) as separate from drug users, but a 20 percent jump in drug consumers over six years would seem to be inconsistent with a 50 percent jump in consumption (or addicts) in four years. This is a stat that is misstated with some frequency. Referencing the same survey, earlier this year Genaro García Luna said that drug consumption doubled over the same period. It would seem that the point of a large national study would be to clear up this sort of confusion. Alas, not so easy.

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