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Is Marijuana a "gateway" drug? Your opinion...

If anything caffeine was my "gateway drug." And I'd add sucrose to that too, but it's not a drug.

Really it was codeine.
 
It's about as ridiculous as saying Anandamide in mother's milk which is nearly identical to THC is a gateway drug. Humans are built to accept THC like substances in their bodies from day 1 so I doubt that would somehow undermine our survival and send us off to more dangerous substances. My curiosity drove me try cigarettes first and then alcohol when I was like 10. Later on reading about Bob Marley and Rastafarians when I was 11 held the idea that I wanted to try marijuana someday in my head till I was 15 and finally got to. Getting into the Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd led me to reading about and trying LSD/Shrooms. So I guess you could say musical heroes were my gateway drugs lol. Really it is all just curiosity induced by information. Kinda like friends telling you about some drug they tried and sayin it was cool.. that could be considered a gateway right there.
 
Certainly is, due simply to the fact that if I want cannabis, I must illegally obtain it, and to do so, I must communicate with people who peddle illegal drugs. Most dealers I know do not sell just cannabis - so often other drugs are smack right in my face.

If alcohol were illegal, it would certainly be a gateway drug in the same sense. Cannabis itself is not, however the method that most people obtain it creates a gateway effect. Solution? Legalization.
 
some people seem to classify 'gateway drug' as a supply/demand function and others are saying it's more psychological...

what does gateway even mean?
you don't see people putting their spoon to the bottom of hot soup.
 
almost every answer has been pretty much rite .
If say you didnt use pot you may just have used booze .
And not useing pot decided to try say coke or acid .
The person that said curiousity is the gateway was rite.
If you have an addictive personality then yer gonna move onto try and experience harder drugs.
Pot is not the gateway ,though like another said it is only in the fact you may meet people selling other drugs ,but you didnt have to be oon pot to get to those other drugs ,all ya had to do is meet them in a social environment......
 
A lot of people say weed is a gateway drug because theyre always talking in a addicts perspective. As in theyre always looking for a new and stronger high. Which I think is bs imo. Also, its the easiest drug people can get their hands on because its so abundant here in the U.S. I didnt try anything else but weed until years later. E for my love of electronic music and shrooms because I wanted to expand my mind and never got addicted to any. Sorry but I dont believe in addiction, I think its all in your head.
 
everyone involved with d.a.r.e. are fucking idiots

people saying weed is a gateway drug are fucking idiots

marijuana is one of the most available drugs, so it makes sense that it is usually the first drug anyone tries

if cocaine were more available than it, then it would be the new "gateway drug"
 
Its like saying obtaining your learners permit to drive is a gateway to getting in car accidents.
 
I think we need to clarify that although weed might lead to harder drugs because it is illegal, the drug itself does not cause people to go out and buy harder drugs. Some people seem to think that the effects of the drug itself makes people want to take harder drugs, which just isn't true. It's a subtle but important distinction.

What I find funny (and ironic) is that people want it to stay illegal because it is supposedly a gateway drug, but the only reason it is a gateway drug in the first place is because it is illegal.
 
it absolutely is a gateway drug. i can say with confidence that the majority of drug addicts started out smoking bud. Weed doesnt make you desire other drugs, but it puts you in contact with people that can get you other drugs. You like the high that weed brings ... other shit is available to get you high .. you eventually are tempted to try it. Plus, your buddies start trying other shit and you kind of just fall into it. Anyone who says it is not a gateway drug is fucking delusional lol. No offense and no hard feelings. Not all pot smokers will try other drugs, but most of them do. Everyone I know that uses/used drugs started with weed.
 
I 100% agree because we have prohibition the circumstances surrounding the procurement and purchase of mary jane mean pot smokers are much more likely to try other substances. They may even be more likely to become addicted because they have become comfortable with being dependant on a substance, assuming they smoke habitually, however I dont see that weed is any more of a gateway drug than anything else.

Legal substances like alcohol, tobacco, and to a more severe but less frequent extent prescribed drugs such as benzos, opiods and amphetamines apear to me to have much more of a potential to open the pandoras box of "addiction". The lack of social stigma in regards to these substances mean people are very complacent with their use and assume they are "safe" or at the very least more safe than illegal drugs but in the case of marijuana and arguably some others this is clearly not true.

I find the above commentary from Onepagememory and Shokra concerning the nature of addiction quite relevant to the issue. I know myself that after using weed for a number of years on a daily basis I had convinced myself that I was an "addict" and would actually manifest physical w/d when I couldnt smoke. I still use marijuana on a regular basis and to a point I am "dependant" on it to relax and sleep at night but as I have become more educated I am aware that any physical w/d are pretty much self inflicted and If I put in place a plan such as waking up early, exercising, stay at work a couple extra hours, possibly a benzo at night and trick my brain by upholding my evening ritual by preparing and smoking a tobacco bong I will be able to sleep. A few days of that and you can quit the ritual too.

Therefore to some point I consider addiction to be "all in your head" however marijuana does not create physical dependance like alcohol, nicotine, opiods, benzos, amphetamines, anti-depressents and many more legal and illegal substances. Therefore you will be much less likely to develop a full blown addiction as long as you manage your mental dependancy on being high.

My experience with marijuana has been that it is the softest of any and all drugs with the least side effects even when used in large amounts as long as only done so for short periods. The only problem is how the majority of us ingest it, by smoking. That and if you happen to be predesposed to schizophrenia you could be in the shit.
 
I think the DARE and anti-drug campaigns have made cannabis the first step in a slippery slope too. Growing up, all I heard from the anti-drug campaigns were "Drugs are bad. They make you feel bad, make you a bad person and there's just nothing good about them at all." Then years later, after drinking lots of alcohol and smoking a few cigarettes (which I don't like, I get nothing out of them unless I'm already way drunk or high) I was offered weed. I tried it and suddenly realized that, hay! this substance got me just as altered as alcohol, but with absolutely no hang over. This was better than legal substances... this was GOOD. I was told it was BAD. I felt lied to. I wondered what else I had been told was BAD that could actually be GOOD. What were the actual effects of harder drugs? If they lied to me about weed, did they lie to me about heroin?

Haven't tried heroin before... but I have tried a few other things I had once thought had no redeeming qualities, all because of the betrayal I felt from all those anti-drug campaigns I grew up with.
 
melange said:
everyone involved with d.a.r.e. are fucking idiots

people saying weed is a gateway drug are fucking idiots

marijuana is one of the most available drugs, so it makes sense that it is usually the first drug anyone tries

if cocaine were more available than it, then it would be the new "gateway drug"
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^^I can sum up the above post by saying: "Anyone who calls someone else an idiot because they have a different opinion, is an idiot"!:p


Anyway, pot doesnt somehow 'force' you to go out and try other drugs after you use it, but it is a gateway drug for the following reasons:

1. Before most people use drugs for the first time, they usually view illegal drug use as taboo to some degree. But once you've crossed that line and used pot(which is usually the first drug most people try), it makes it much easier and more acceptable to try another drug.

2. Once you've crossed the taboo line and tried pot, lots of us then become curious to try other drugs.

3. Once you've tried pot and met some drug dealers, it is easier to find and obtain other drugs. That wasnt the case before you started using pot, and hanging around the drug crowd.


However, that doesnt mean that pot is the only gateway drug. As another person pointed out, alcohol is a great gateway drug. I pointed out on another forum that the first time I bought H, I had been drinking beer, and I had "beer
courage" that made it easier for me to travel to the projects for the first time and buy H. Cigarettes can to a lesser extent be a gateway drug too.

But really, any drug that you try for the first time can be your gateway drug. The point is that pot is usually that drug.
 
But really, any drug that you try for the first time can be your gateway drug. The point is that pot is usually that drug.
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I think most of us here would agree with this. It appears you also agree that cannabis per se is not a gateway drug by saying: "...pot doesnt somehow 'force' you to go out and try other drugs after you use it" and then mention other drugs can be gateway drugs as well. This all leads me to the question, what's your point? :D
 
Damien said:
I think most of us here would agree with this. It appears you also agree that cannabis per se is not a gateway drug by saying: "...pot doesnt somehow 'force' you to go out and try other drugs after you use it" and then mention other drugs can be gateway drugs as well. This all leads me to the question, what's your point? :D
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Whats my point? Thats simple.....I asked about people's opinions on whether pot is a gateway drug.

I didnt 'agree' that pot 'is not' a gateway drug by saying that "it doesnt somehow force you to go out and try other drugs". But that doesnt mean that it isnt a gateway drug. I explained 3 legitimate and obvious reasons in my last post why it IS a gateway drug. I think you are looking for excuses to claim that pot isnt a gateway drug.. But thats OK... As I stated in the OP, I used to say that pot wasnt a gateway drug even though I knew it was deep down inside. ;)

But I'll say again, that I think it SHOULD have been legalized in Ca.
 
I would consider it a gateway drug only in that my mother undoubtedly would have smoked it while I was in utero.... though in my living years it was the drug to come very very last.
 
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