Don't Blame Pot -- There's No Such Thing as a "Gateway Drug"

Of course pot CAN be a gateway drug.
After all- we gotta start somewhere, right?
 
Marijuana is the most widely (ab)used illicit drug in the world. I think its a pretty safe bet that most novice drug users would be able to find a bag of weed than say, a bag of 5-meo-dipt
 
My first drug use was not pot or even booze or nicotine I started right off with coke and moved on from their to H and acid and the such, I only recently started enjoying marijuana (about the past 2 years) and only because its helped me reduce my drug seeking behavoir and allow me to maintain a "hard" drug free lifestyle.
 
halla said:
Of course pot CAN be a gateway drug.
After all- we gotta start somewhere, right?
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For weed to really be the gateway drug I say thus every person that does drug would have to start on pot but I can say that is no way the case.
There are a lot of myths about weed. A lot that have been prooven and failed.

The whole debate on whether to make weed legal has been taking place for decades.

The pros and cons.

I myself do smoke and I myself would push for the legalisation of such product.
It has been prooven thaat weed is not really as dagerous as once beleieved I do not suggest smoking weed does not come without dangers. but I can say there are a lot more dangerous sunstances out there which are very much legal to obtain and proberly a much more suitable to be called the "gate way drug". ?


Smoking anything too much wouldn't be the best for your health but it has been prooven tobboaccao has substances 5x more lethal then that of weed.

I have found that no one has died from smoking too much weed but number of people are dying every year from alcohol poisining

Imangine if weed was legal and was a taxed product maybe there would be enough people purchasing weed to get this country out our money problems?

Vote greeen.=D
 
Originally Posted by amor fati
The reason it's a "gateway drug" is BECAUSE it's illegal. Once you cross that line of doing illegal drugs, the rest of lines get a little fainter.
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I'm outraged that I've got to step into this 'underworld', and be prepared to play all sorts of social games and engage grimy people I'd normally want nothing to do with, just because I smoke marijuana.
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I agree that this "fading line" that someone crosses once they start going to an illegal source for drugs is the real issue as opposed to any specific chemical being the "gateway." In fact, as some people have stated already, grouping marijuana in the same group as other illegal drugs probably causes it's use to more often "lead" to someone trying other drugs, or at least precede the experimentation of other drugs. When an uneducated kid finds his 1st link to the drug world when looking to try pot, it is common for them to naturally gain access to other drugs through the same people. If pot were available legally, it would probably decrease the access that your average high school kid would have to other drugs, because they would not have need to find entrance into the underground market.
As far as gateway drugs are concerned, studies released by CAMH are indicating a drastic rise in the number of kids who's first experiences with drugs are with prescription drugs found in their parent's or a friend's parent's, medicine cabinet, or OTC products found in the same place. The numbers are somewhere in the range of 25% of teens by the age of 16 have taken their parent's prescription meds without their knowledge for the purpose of getting high. Thats quite high when you consider how much lower the saftey margins are for an ignorant youth randomely popping pills vs. the saftey margins of smoking pot. Until my kid takes the time to educate themselves on the safe use of drugs, I'd rather have them smoking pot than playing with opioids, benzos, dextromethorphan, or alcohol. Legalize it for christs sake already! lol
 
After reading this article, I thought: "So what?"

All drugs can be considered "gateway drugs", meaning they MAY lead to other drugs. People have the right to chose, and it depends on the individual's personality.
 
quinton said:
For weed to really be the gateway drug I say thus every person that does drug would have to start on pot but I can say that is no way the case.


Vote greeen.=D
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agreed

also, i agree that smoking pot may make you more around other people into "harder" drugs, thus the gateway ref.

~October

Unknown's adoptee...
 
Cornishman said:
Are they trying to say that people who use mind altering drugs dont just stick to one substance?!
That they actually like variety?
Whats this world coming to?
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IDK if that was directed towards my comment, but I'll respond anyways.

I didn't say that. I think the drive to use drugs are determined on the person's personality, and curiosity. I somewhat think once somebody ventures into the world of drug use, they may be curious to try others. I don't believe this applies to people who "try" a drug once.
 
I smoked pot once when I was in highschool (and on the job). Didn't get much or anything out of it and just coughed like crazy.

I didn't get into illegal drugs until I played around with salvia and then got a prescription for hydrocodone.

From there it was pods and pills galore.

A little heroin, psychedelics, stimulants, etc.

Then it was methadone and suboxone.

Go figure.
 
those 46% are fags who've brought all the shit the gov. has fed them.. No worries though we just need to wait for them to die of cancer & other marijuana treatable illnesses for legalization to continue on it's way.
 
I've used many different drugs, and marijuana is not one of them.
I'll probably be using cocaine in a few days, and may end up using heroin before weed.
I do want to try weed. I think I am just going to grow my own in the closet. I just need to get it set up. Maybe within six months or so I'll have some nice pot plants.

Most people use alcohol or tobacco before other drugs.

All drugs should be legalized.
Marijuana would surely be legal if the rules for scheduling drugs was followed, though those rules should not even exist in a so called free society.
We should be able to do whatever the hell we want with our own bodies.

Apparently our bodies are the property of the federal government.
 
The simplest argument I learned in stat class seems to be the best.

Causation implies correlation, while correlation does not imply causation.

But I guess the proponents of the gateway drug theory are too dumb to understand it.
 
Also I'd like to add that the DARE program is its own gateway into drug use.

Whoever thought it'd be a good idea to let a police officer teach kids about drugs?

This is what was presented to my classmates and I.

Drugs make you feel: [list of negative side effects]
To get your drugs you may resort to: [criminal activity]
Eventually you go to jail or die from using: [drug]
Drugs are common and are something you will probably encounter in your lives.

Although as kids we take in most information without questioning or skepticism, something struck me as wrong in this picture painted by this policeman. Most specifically the question of "Why do people use drugs if all the above hold true, if they present no benefit to the user?"

Something went off in my head. Why would people knowingly put themselves in jeopardy by using drugs; it had to offer something beneficial. Something wasn't right about what this cop was telling me. I had to find out for myself.

Years later I used my DARE certificate as a chopping surface. I am currently doing a research paper on discrimination by employers against convicts. I really want to tell the world that the DARE program is the real gateway "drug."

I even recall being told that using marijuana will lead to heroin. I scratched my head. Why, is marijuana better than heroin, less bad? Yeah, I used marijuana before I used heroin. The idea of marijuana as a gateway drug might be self-fulfilling. If I didn't know that heroin is related to marijuana, I probably wouldn't even be exposed to it unless I sought it out. It took til my late teens and early 20's to even realize that legal alcohol is in the same ballpark with illegal and dangerous marijuana.
 
I've been smoking mull close to daily for a year and a half and I've never moved onto hard addictive drugs. Never touched them, I just fuck around with psychadelics every 2 weekends or so. Only one person out of my main group of friends has ever tried shards, and in such a small quantity that he didn't actually buzz off it. And besides which, conehead or not, if you come into contact with addictive drugs and you take it again with the intentions to relive your first high, you're already at the start of that short road to OD City.
 
pofacedhoe said:
the gateway drug in america is ritalin
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WOW! I believe that to be so true!

My ex wife was reaserching for a paper she wrote for an addictions course, and she found that the incidence of addiction in adults who had Attention Deficit Disorder as kids (and as adults also - I personally don't believe that you "grow out of" ADD) was significantly higher than those who did not have ADD. Of those, the ones who had been treated with Methylphenidate (Ritalin) had even higher numbers of addiction than persons who had not been treated with Ritalin.

She also found that Ritalin was unique in this regard, persons treated with Dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine) actually showed a decrease in developing addictions later on in life. She believed this to be because of the way Ritalin is formulated. I can't remember the details from there with any accuracy, but when I read quoted post it sure stirred up some memories!8o
 
Agreed. I think they just use that line so kids won't smoke weed but I know its bullshit because lot of people I know and I fucked with a ton of harder drugs before smoking weed :/
 
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