Even Media Watch has noticed that stories about cannabis, and cannabis users, pull the eyeballs - half-closed, slightly bloodshot, reality-redefining eyeballs.
They take a look at the statistics behind these extraordinary claims from a recent story in the Sydney Morning Herald :
"One in three people have used marijuana and about one in six are addicted..."Media Watch rewrites the lead, based on a more accurate interpretation of the 2004 National Drug Strategy Household Survey statistics the Herald used for its story :
"...up to a quarter of people aged over 30 were smoking cannabis weekly and one in five were smoking it daily."
"The 2004 National Drug Strategy Household Survey found that one in 25 people aged between 30 and 39 were smoking cannabis weekly and one in 30 were smoking it daily."Well, that reality check isn't going to help the daily commuting, daily stoned paranoidians to mellow out now, is it?
When they thought One In Six Australians Were Addicted To Cannabis, and were smoking it daily, they knew could relax on the bus or the train, even when they were forced to sit facing the rest of the commuters, because, well hell, the odds were that out of the 30 or 40 people sharing the train carriage or bus, there had to be at least six or seven pot junkies struggling not to giggle or become overwhelmed with brain-freaking revelations just like they were.
But now they know, thanks to Media Watch, that their original paranoia was in fact correct. They really might be the only one in that bus or train carriage, after all, who is blasted to the Kuiper Belt, and everyone really is staring at them, and knows, yeah they all know, just what kind of 'special cookie' accompanied the morning coffee.
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