Monday, March 20, 2006
Illegal Acts Polls
Here's some "facts" from a recent article about grass in Canada, "In 2004, the Canadian Addiction Survey found 44.5% of Canadians reported using cannabis at least once - up from 23.3% in 1989. The proportion of respondents who admitted to using cannabis in the previous year was 14.1% - compared with 9.7% of Britons and 10.6% of Americans in equivalent surveys."
Why on earth do people keep quoting this type of statistic? Do you really think that people are going to accurately admit to illegal activities that could result in having them become a convicted felon? And if the respondents don't realize that, are they really smart enough fill out a survey?
Sure, we've all heard terms like non-attributable, anonymous, won't be identified, etc. used during surveys. Does anyone today honestly believe that kind of crap is true? I've gotten surveys in the mail that claim to be anonymous and they have my mailing label on the back of them. I've gotten barcoded surveys at work. I love the surveys that come to you from work over the company intranet and claim to be anonymous - just how stupid do you think your employees are?
And then there's the people who answer these things. Yes, judge, last week away from everyone where no one could see me I indulged in several illegal acts including, blah, blah and especially blah. And I did those things at least 4.7 times a month for the past 3.2 years while I was between the ages of 32 to 39 -- and here's my wrists, just clamp them cuffs on them.
