In my place, alcohol (4 years old in Greece- its cultural thibg). Then I developed a mild obsession of alcohol and nicotine. Raided parents licor cabinet a few times. It was the drug of choice in Junior high were we mized "death drinks" mixing togethe what we could clectively find from parents cabinets. On that occasion, a few got caught because we were narcked on (in Gym- stupid out in the open). I skated free because I was present that time but didn't imbibe. We had a friend that had a friend a cool young dad that would kind of look the other way when we had sleepovers, even when his son raided the huge liquor cabinet. We got drunk a few times, but vrazy drunk, puke in the fort, pass out. I wanted to experiment with cocaine after reading a time & Newsweek article that made it sound like a perfect drug. i was unsuccessful in my attempts (tried through a friend when I was 12] finally got to do a few lines of decent coke after soccer practice WITH CHICKS! htrough a well conected friend after soccer practice that also smoked us out in Reno at a tournament with Northern CA's finest- Highest I ever been- walked ouside and felt I was underwater. The joint was just good ( don't think it was a lenyos [CA slang for a laced joint]). I tripped at circus circus were we were staying and finished dragonslayer all the wat to the end for the first time in my life after years of trying-it came naturally. I had/ and still do, an unatural facinination of min altering chemicals, including EtOH, Nicotine, and Cafeine.
But the chicken and egg debate: I read my sisters college textbook that debunked alot of what I read in health ed. I developed a affinity if I could get my hands on it on coccaine- and for several years, had no interest in using Cannabis, paradoxically. I would use opiates (could never forget the effect that a codeine pill did to the excruciating pain at 3 in the morning- it miracously stoped being distressful. Anyway, one could say, a bizzare intellectual curiosity preceded my use of drugs. Drank alcohol for years before and the outcome was usally bad with my friends- I, paradoxically excersixed the most control. Then pot-coke-tweak-acid-shrooms-opium-E in fairly rapid order.
I contrast this with my Greek cousins- there were very little taboos atleast when used in the presence of an adult-kids wouldn't sneak booze, it was a non-issue. When I visited and I was 20, I was shocked to see that my cousins on a typical night out drank coffee nescafe blended drinks "Frapes"- the greek twist on this drink. They would go out every couple of days and drink- someone would splurge on a bottle of scotch- but it was rare to see them drink more than 2 or 3 drinks in an evening. Cannabis- forget it- not in their circle. There was a subculture that smoked it but it was very small by western standards. I had 2 seperate cousins that had friends that smoked- and non of them according to them were regular users.
On the trip on the Ferry from Italy to Greece, I met 2 truck drivers that smoked hash-they emphasized it was Greek hash- but you could tell they had their own clique and were ostracized by other truck drivers.
So I would say that alcohol is the gateway drug and in some states its given equal staus as cannabis. I think the old OCs or heroin are the gateway drugs and coke in the UK and other parts of theory, "if you subscribe to the gateway theory.
he fact is, that illegalization & strict rules, even underparental supervision- leads to the "forbiden fruit syndrome." I would advocate controlled consuption with adults or cannabis smoking. I would not advocate it with other drugs (maybe shrooms)
Going back- when Greeks had sleepovers, they had free access to booze, but usually choose soda instead (in the 80s).
