Memorandum From Your Child

Useful Statistics

The illegal drug industry ranks in size with Mobil Oil as our second largest business — only Exxon is larger.
Cocaine is now the leading cash flow drug a 26-32 billion a year.
The U.S. Spends almost as much money on marijuana — 18-26 billion a year — as its spends on import oil. Marijuana is California’s largest cash crop.
The drug paraphernalia business was a 3 billion a year industry in 1979.
This year, among American high school seniors, one in 11 is a daily user of marijuana.
Today’s cultivated marijuana has an average potency of 4% THC — the major psychoactive ingredient — as compared to the marijuana of the 60′s which had an average potency of .25% THC. Today’s marijuana is 10 to 15 times stronger than that of the 60′s.

THC remains in the fatty tissues of body cells, especially in the brain and the reproductive organs. Even a week after marijuana joint is smoked, 30-50% of the THC is still in the body in active form. It takes 3 to 6 weeks to eliminate all THC from the body. More frequent use means that the user is never drug-free, in fact, there is a gradual accumulation of the drug in the fatty tissues of the body.
There are over 7,000 published scientific and medical studies documenting the damage that marijuana does to the various systems of the body. Not one study give marijuana a clean bill of health.
Marijuana is a complex material containing 421 chemicals, 60 of which are found only in marijuana.
Five typical marijuana cigarettes have the same cancer-causing capability as 112 tobacco cigarettes. Marijuana tar has more carcinogens than tobacco tar, and the smoke is inhaled more deeply, further aggravating the lungs and the respiratory system.
Reaction time for the motor skills, such as driving, is reduced by 41% after smoking one joint and by 63% after smoking 2 joints.
Marijuana use reduces or alters the fundamental cellular defense against disease. White blood cell count is reduced 41% from normal levels with regular use of the drug.
THC has been found to interfere with the transmission of brain messages; EEG’s of regular users exhibit abnormal brain wave patterns.

10% of all workers have an alcohol problem
6% of all workers have a drug problem
5,000 work related fatalities yearly are due to drugs and alcohol
1 million work related serious injuries are due to drugs and alcohol yearly
Cost to industries due to alcohol abuse is $77 billion per year
Cost to industries due to drug abuse is $27 billion per year
Lost productivity due to drugs and alcohol is $44 billion per year
Alcohol and Drug Abusers:
1. are late 3 times more than other employees
2. are 2 1/2 times more likely to leave work early, take time oft, be absent
3. use 3 times more sick days
4. have 4 times as many on the job accidents
5. use 8 times as many hospital days
Assisting an employee who has a drug problem is more cost effective than hiring a new employee. The firing/hiring process is expensive and there is no guarantee that the new employee will not suffer a similar problem.
60% of all employees can be successfully rehabilitated if they seek treatment. This reduces the absentee rate from 8% down to 3%.