There is a major segment missing from this article. It fails to mention how Muslim law prohibits drink alcohol, thus all though the Arab world there is a major drug abuse problem. I wonder if the numbers would be so staggeringly different if it included abuse of alcohol.

senses with mind altering drugs is the way to get them to be suicide bombers and assassin attackers. The ancient Aztecs did the same thing and gave such drugs to soldiers about to go into battle to give them more courage and strength. Sorcery has been defined by some as someone who uses or provides to others, hallucinogenic drugs. Such people, unless the repent and turn away from such things, cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

the jewish youths are just lying to the pollsters. They use just as much as any other religion or race. To think that only 1% of jewish teenagers have used marijuana is laughable. This artical is nothing more than defamation to an entire generation of young people. Typical Jewery! If i lived under a military occupation and was dicriminated against and harassed in every aspect of my life, i would most likely turn to drugs for a little bit of happiness and euphoria.

sir, most american youth DO NOT LIVE UNDER "OCCUPATION", AS YOU CALL IT. they live in rich homes, with money and modernity. yet, they are severe drug abusers from the age of 14. if the "occupation" is a reason for drug abuse, then why most drug abusers in the world who are not "occupied" resort to drug abuse???? occupation is a myth. i would rather say that hamas is the occupier, not israel. it is hamas that, should they finish the rocket attacks and build the future palestinian country and make peace with fateh....then, there will be no occupation but rather nation building. do not blame occupation for drug abuse. it is incorrect to assume that as much as it is incorrect to say that world youth do drugs because they are occupied, which they are not.

Or at least as it is presented here in Ynet. 1) To have a criminologist report on the findings is to admit to a prejudicial bias in the experimental premise: drugs are illegal. This might seem like a throw away phrase, but it contaminates the entire analysis that follows. This is a legal issue and not a social/cultural/health issue. What occurs when a 'criminologist' conducts the survey is the inductive strategy of filling evidence to support a predicated conclusion. No matter how 'objective' or compassionate the IADAF claims to be, the legal aspect of the study has already 'assessed' the participants before the data has even been collected: "drug use is inherently criminal"... 2) The stats are collected by anecdote... that is to say, they don't actually indicate 'hard fact'. They indicate how much these youth SAY they use/don't use drugs. Drug use may be glorified/vilified amongst the demographics being asked, therefore influencing what answer the participant volunteers. It is corruptible to the lie. The article states it clearly: Jews are afraid of the legal ramifications. That might not implicate their actual drug use, but moreso their reportage on drug use. Likewise, the rebellious signification of drug use might encourage Arabs who want to appear anti-establishment or counter-culture, even though they never touch the stuff. 3) Also, how does anybody get 'hooked' to marijuana. And how are Arabs 'hookable' and Jews not. That centre phrase stinks, and defies decades (if not millenia) of medical evidence to the contrary. Hypothetically, Israeli Arabs qualify as an 'at-risk' social subset, and so the findings themselves are not that surprising... It's just that the methods used in the arrival of the conclusion are so broken that the 'study' should be considered useless.

Where do you have the information to prove that "The Jewish youths are just lying", and that lying is "Typical Jewery!" Your comment is one of the most generalizing, anti-semitic comments I have read in a while. Not to mention, it erases any credibility you might have had. Either way, one drug abuser is one too many. Let's hope that materials are put out to the public to demonstrate the dangers of drugs, and tobacco as well!

The article is about Israeli Arabs living in Israel. They don't live under military occupation nor should you assume they are discriminated against or harassed. They are also free to leave and to stop taking drugs.

The fact that only 1 % admit to using drugs is laughable in any jurisdiction. Most teenagers will experiment, with about 25 - 30% going on to be regular users by their early to mid twenties. then it trends downward, an this is true in nearly all socieites. However studies have been done on poplulations with heavy military occupation, either by them or onto them and the evidence does show that it has a major impact on the frequency of use and the length of time the people use them, so YES, occupation, imprisonong, protecting your borders, whatever you want to call it, does have a lasting impact on the populations use of drugs on both those 'occupied and the occupiers'

tibet has been occupied by china, even brutally. yet, very few drug users there. iranian statistics on drug and heroin problems and usage is in the milions. two million of heroin addicts in iran, yet there is no occupation there. is this another way that the arabs never take responsibility for their own problems and behaviors, and instead blame it on everyone else, on "occupation" and on the jews? arabs seem to have a proficiency in never looking at themselves and blaming everyone else so that they never have to take responsibility for their deeds and actions, for their poverty and misery, for their backwardsness and dismal despotic regimes. drugs and usage of drugs is also one thing they hold the israelis as responsible for via a concocted "occupation". there was rampant hashish and drug use in gaza vicinity during egyptian rule and dominance there. gee, those "palestinians" living in gaza prior to 1967, prior to the so called "israeli occupation" have never demanded a state of their own, never called themselves palestinians, but arabs. they still used drugs much more that all the jews in israel proper, still lived in misery and destitute in camps. yet, not once did you hear them request an independent palestinian state of their own. i wonder why?

...the answer to your convoluted diatribe is this: Because Israel has needed them as an enemy - and still does.

Maybe your point is that the Gaza should be flooded with Hash...?

I dont think Israel could exist without an enemy at the gates. Its a sad state of mind

and this is where you are utterly wrong! it is the arab regimes that imprisoned these people and used them as weapons against israel and towards israel's destruction. it is these arab regimes who have imprisoned these people in permanent refugee camps, in dirt, in poverty and in abuse, and never nationalized them, never accepted them with citizenship, never made them feel at home, always imprisoned them and finally, when the arab regimes realized that they can never defeat israel militarily, they turned to those palestinian refugees and indoctrinated them through hate propaganda in the refugee camps, through hate text book education professing to kill the jews and never accept them in their midst, and made them into a weapon of hate and terror against jews and israel. it is arafat, with russian kgb influence and military assistance that in 1964 (before the occupation) the plo was founded. for what? israel didn't occupy gaza or west bank then. so why the need for the plo???? a terrorist organization to boot! what was the plo fighting against then??? what were they trying to liberate then? there was nothing to liberate before 1967 and yet, the plo and other islamic terror organizations from jordan, lebanon, syria and egypt continuously attacked and killed israelis. israel absorbed into its country one million jews that were kicked out of arab lands that were persecuted by the arab regimes criminally, murdered, hanged and pogromed against. they finally were kicked out, their property stolen, their homes and businesses confiscated. BUT INSRAEL GAVE THEM A HOME, CITIZENSHIP, HOPE, PRIDE AND A SENSE OF BELONGING TO A NATION AND A PEOPLE. and this was when israel had no money, no resources to help the jewish refugees from arab lands. but it took them in and now they number 70% of the jewish population in israel. they are called mizrahim. they flourished and became educated and productive members of the society in israel. israel could have let them rot, but it didn't. this is where the difference between israel and the arab regime lies. the arab regimes deflect negative attention and complaints by the arab public and citizens by using a common enemy....israel! when you constantly get the masses aroused to hate a common enemy, aroused to kill a common enemy, it is no wonder that this public doesn't pay attention to the miserable conditions that their leaders keep them in under tyranical regimes. israel then is a convenient scapegoat for the masses to direct their anger towards a common enemy rather than look closely at their regimes and how badly these regimes treat these masses. israel doesn't need to keep the refugees as an enemy. it is not in israel's interest to perpetuate terror. we do not suffer from an arab mentality whereby we need to use the masses to survive. this whole mess is on the shoulders of all arab leaders that one, didn't accept the refugees into their midst. these refugees never asked for their own state before 1967. so, why would the arab regimes not incorporate them into their countries? why didn't the arab regimes give them a state in gaza and west bank and a capital in east jerusalem before 1967 and the "occupation"??? if they were so concerned about the palestinians and didn't want to incorporate them into their countries, then they should have constructed a viable state for these refugees instead of keeping them oppressed in camps under the most vile conditions.

remember wanda....the israelis didn't occupy gaza and the west bank with east jerusalem prior to 1967. yet, these refugees were kept in camps. why? did israel keep them in camps to keep them as an enemy? what for? why would israel do so? what interest did israel have in keeping these refugees festering in those camps under squalor and povery? it was both egypt and jordan that owned them and put them there. israel had no say in what egypt and jordan decided to do with these refugees. the truth of the matter is that there was no way on earth that both egypt and the hashemite kingdom in jordan were ever going to give up the lands of gaza and west bank with east jerusalem to those refugees because both these countries didn't want to part with these lands. they also considered the palestinians as ruffage and unrully and trouble makers. the palestinians, whenever they rebelled in these camps against both egypt and jordan, they were summerily executed by the arab regimes and by syria. (hamma, in syria where hafez al assad killed and gunned down 20,000 palestinian refugees in one day to quiet a revolt... jordan... where the king abdullah slaughtered 9,000 palestinian refugees part of the plo as well that rebeled against the kingdom. egypt... that slaughtered 350 refugees in one of the camps in gaza during a rebellion). so, you see. israsel in fact had zero interest in keeping these refugees as enemies. however, the arab totalitarian regimes have an interest in keeping them the mortal enemy of the jewish state in israel and used them for terror, killing, murder, and a suicide bombing culture. it was fully in the arab regimes' interest to keep the palestinian wound festering in the camps, to abuse them, to downgrade them, to dishonor them and to repress them. the arabs knew and planned that to be so. they knew what the end result would be. they knew that these refugees will blame israel and not the arab regimes who were their original prison guards and who made them suffer so very much. again, how convenient to blame israel. how simplistic an answer you have given me in your talkback. how moronic of you to not really understand how things got to this point. are you also an arab that cannot look at the truth in its eye and never take responsibility for your actions against a people that you have used for vile political purposes, indoctrinated to hate and eventually stole their life, innocence and hope?

it's not israel that needs them. on the contrary, it is the arab regimes that need them to continue being the enemy at the door. sheesh, what would the arab regimes do without such an enemy? ha" gee, the arab regimes thought, if we can't defeat israel militaristically after so many wars we initiated, then we might as well use a poor population of palestinians, interned them into poverty in refugee camps, refuse them nationality and citizenship, continue festering their wounds with anti semitism and jew hatered propaganda and lies, indoctrinate their youth to hate, to terrorize and to a hope of thedestruction of the common enemy, israel. and....also, give them text books that are vile with anti semetic propaganda, educate generation after generation to kill and do shahada, to die for a "cause", let's keep them poor, destitute, angry and depressed, etc... also, the regimes said...why don't we fester this palestinian wound and find the common enemy, israel, so that the populations we are governing over in such despotic totalitarian and miserable way, will never blame us for all our regimes' shortcomings and repressive ruling style, and rather blame israel for all our troubles and woes. let's all rile the masses to a common anger and angst so that we can deflect the blame from us and put it on a common enemy. this, dear, is the gist of this mess. israel doesn't need a common enemy. the arab regimes, do, however.

But not convincing enough. As far as Im concerned at this stage, A plague on both your houses, because none of you seem to want to solve the mess your in. I did have a conversation with a military guy when I was in Israel. and he said, 'God help us if they surrender completly, because we will then have to turn on each other'

what i wrote you has been told to me by palestinians living the good and peaceful life in australia when i visited there and met some of them in a pub by chance. we got to talking and analyzing the situation on the ground where they presented their views as i wrote them in my talkback. and by the way, what the israeli general has told you, if you really understood jewish deprecating humor in israel, which you obviously do not, is a sarcastic comment rooted in humor. as you, i do not wish for the palestinians to disappear and do sincerely wish them a prosperous future. it is not the palestinians as a whole that have created this situation. it is the arab regimes as i explained and as these palestinians from australia explained to me. the arab regimes as well as the leaders of hamas, fatah and the various terror factions in gaza and the west bak that are aided, bbeted and supported by these arab regimes.

Who said he was a General... He was up the ranks certainly, but not a general, although I did notice that everyone I did ask what were they in the army, they all said they were a commander. Tharts one hell of a lot of commanders in one army, but I digress. He wasnt saying it iin a sarcastic way, and I do know the guy. He said it despairingly, and if you dont want the palestinians to disappear, you are possibly the only one in these TB's that thinks that way. Of course its the regimes that have caused this problem, or at least contributed to it, but the whole point to the article was trying to claim that Arab kids are stoned, Jewish kids study hard and become Doctors and Lawyers, thats what is wrong with the article.