Is America Switching from Booze to Weed? Archives - Freakonomics

drug culture of any time is a pure measurement of a society's collective subconscious what they really want

A 2011 report written by UC-Berkeley law professor Robert J. MacCoun and published in the journal Addiction found that 71.5 percent of American teenagers said it’s very easy to get pot, compared with 41.5 percent in Holland.

I sometimes wonder if our modern predilection for becoming addicted is fueled in part by the way drugs remind us that we still have bodies.

It’s not. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has meticulously tracked the spending patterns of families receiving means-tested government assistance. Not surprisingly, those receiving assistance spend a larger share of their income on necessities (housing, food) and a smaller share on entertainment, alcohol, and tobacco than other American f

distilled alcohol changed the sacred art of the brewer and the vintner into a profane economic engine for the consumption of human hopes.