Experts debate whether marijuana is a 'gateway' drug

plmar said:
Weed isn't a gateway drug, Alcohol is.
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We have a thread from a couple years back about a study actually saying this.

1k words said:
If your circle of friends all smoke weed eventually someone will eventual come to the party with pills or mushrooms or coke.
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You're seriously equating the two? I mean, I get you're saying that those two are most likely, but putting them in the same sentence leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
 
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One Thousand Words said:
But heroin is addictive and more often than not will lead you to a life of ruin. The government also tells me to wear my seat belt, plenty of dumb people refuse to wear them too.
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That's true but how many people *start* with heroin?

One Thousand Words said:
Weed is definitely a social gateway, or perhaps a stepping stone. Some kids don't even drink, they choose to dedicate their life to sobriety and fill it with other things. If your circle of friends all smoke weed eventually someone will eventual come to the partiy with pills or mushrooms or coke.
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All this tells us is that where there's one drug there are usually others, which I agree with. Any party that has weed use will probably have access to other stuff. Doesn't mean that weed started it.
 
Foreigner said:
Not sure if I even take gateway drug theory seriously at this point. It sort of takes responsibility away from the user by implying that they were lead by the hand down a road based on the influence of the substance itself, instead of their choice to keep getting high. In my personal life, most of the addicts I met started out as alcoholics and when it was no longer feasible they moved on to other kinds of impulsive substance abuse. But I also know that there are many RX drug users who transition to stronger street varieties... so who is to say?

To me, the "gateway" comes down to your mentality and not any particular substance.
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Absolutely. It also may come down to lifestyle, and access, no? If someone grows up in a community where herb isn't readiily available, but cocaine is, then what happens to the gateway model?
 
Foreigner said:
That's true but how many people *start* with heroin?
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Plenty. They usually get hooked on pain medications before hand and eventually seek out cheaper options.

I also know plenty of fitness fanatics who also refuse to smoke yet eventually found other drugs because many party drugs were healthier/less fattening than alcohol. They are a minority compared to those who started with bongs though.
 
But heroin is addictive and more often than not will lead you to a life of ruin.
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Where is this statistic coming from?

The topic of the OP article has been studied ad nauseum. There is no gateway drug, and if there were it would be Alcohol, etc., etc., etc.
 
I don't understand how it is that one drug is supposed to lead to using other drugs more than any others in the first place. If a person likes one altered state of course they're going to be interested in others. I understand how alcohol can be talked about as a gateway drug of sorts simply because it lowers inhibitions, but after its effects wear off I don't know why it would be any more of a gateway drug than any others either.
 
If there is a gateway drug, it's alcohol.

If heroin was legal, there would be a lot less posts in the dark side. It's not the heroin that makes people post there, it's the lack of.
 
You're right there, booze culture in my country is the thing I blame every time some poor idiot winds up in hospital after taking stupidly high amounts of an RC compound he/she hasn't even bothered to research in any way-in booze culture, it's all about drinking yourself paralytic with the highest amount of alcohol they can possibly shove down your throat in one sitting...that strategy doesn't tend to work so well with some of the potent chemicals being sold, and this is probably a big reason why these drugs are being blanket banned left, right and centre.

The cannabis as a gateway to harder, more addictive drugs has always reeked of bullshit to me; it operates under the assumption that because all "hard" drug addicts have all used cannabis, then all cannabis users could potentially become drug addicts. I could start keeping a lucky toad to prevent earthquakes from occurring; there has never been an earthquake in the UK, so I guess my lucky toad idea really works, no...?
 
They disagree over whether booze being legal or heroin being illegal is a problem. Have a debate about it. These obviously are opposing views.
 
Why don't the fuckwits ban booze ay? Oi, come watch the cricket we won the ashes, "what are you going to do after", cricketer "you know, have a beer or two with the boys, gonna be feeling bad tomorrow" reporter and cricketer "ha ha ha ha", because both of them can relate, both alcoholic sober people.

Me,---COP "what is that in your hand?" me " a baggy to feel better" COP "WTF get him..." reporter "a junky has been busted and sent to jail, we need to keep this good policing work up" yo; FUCK U ALL!
 
^ They tried banning booze in the U.S. in the early 20th century and it failed miserably because, *shock and awe*, people drank it anyway, crime mobs took over production, and people were dying like crazy from ingesting tainted product or methanol which the government put into its alcohol to prevent bootlegging

Somehow alcohol won re-approval but nothing else has.
 
Foreigner said:
^ They tried banning booze in the U.S. in the early 20th century and it failed miserably because, *shock and awe*, people drank it anyway, crime mobs took over production, and people were dying like crazy from ingesting tainted product or methanol which the government put into its alcohol to prevent bootlegging

Somehow alcohol won re-approval but nothing else has.
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No other drug has been prohibited by a ratified amendment to the constitution; drugs have been rescheduled, THC for example.

The Volstead Act prohibited "intoxicating liquors". Beverages with more than 0.5% alcohol concentration.

Adding methanol to the denaturing process was no secret and it was not "government" alcohol. People who provided "tax-free" alcohol knew it was poisoned.
 
Still, if more people are addicted to opiates than to weed, does that mean that most people who take opiates are addicted?
 
The real gateway drug is sugar.
Then caffeine.
If it weren't for those two, children would not experience the joys of altering their consciousness, and would never have reason to move to other drugs.

Oh, wait, I forgot about spinning in circles - the real gateway drug!
 
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