LA Weekly's Feature: Don't Get High Without It: is an article largely devoted to a profile of Erowyd but some of its discussion brings up very interesting questions outside of the simple right/wrong. For example, NIDA is sponsoring research on the relationship between the Internet and illicit drug use among at-risk kids. Presumably, the research looks at Internet use for specific foraging for information on drug use and the outcomes of these searches.
Yet, "the results are ambiguous. "We've had people who are not drug users read about Salvia divinorum and thought it was cool and started using it. By the same token, we've had people who used to snort Ritalin get on the Web, find out that it was bad, and quit.""
Ok... lets get methodological here - this looks like an interaction. There is something else that moderates the choice, something that is not accounted for here. It's easy to blame availability of information and this is the reason why censorship exists. Yet HOW information is used may be moderated by various things. Maybe its education, prior exposure, personal negative or positive experience, existence of social support, personality factors, something. Something that, if found, may color this research in a completely different hue. It also may propose more useful policies and programs. The ovious is often easy to blame for problems, yet attacking the symptom rarely gets at the cause.
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