Study say marijuana no gateway drug

maybe all of the acid I've taken reached back in time and caused me to smoke that first cig.

now acid it the gateway!....drug
 
It is the person doing the thinking the entire time; choosing to use drugs if they want. I feel that "gateway drug" is pretty much meaningless. The people whom use this term use it describe a process they can see happening, but are choosing the incorrect cause. I think it has more to do with the social settings and even more with the individual. I never smoked pot in high school yet I was surrounded by it. I chose when I wanted to try it. I know that my friends that don't smoke weed, also don't drop acid or bump some DOC (oooh it burns!). I also know these friends are more afraid in general, not just cautious, but fearful. An example: I went camping two weeks ago (-12c/10f) for a couple night with these friends of mine and me smoking MJ at night around the campfire became an issue with one of them. The other two just felt slightly awkward yet acted as they didn't. It's new, it's different, Henry Miller said, "The new always carries with it the sense of violation, of sacrilege. What is dead is sacred; what is new, that is different, is evil, dangerous, or subversive." They can't get over their fear and just be curious, well the one cannot.
The real gateway is the opening of the mind to new possibilities. When you travel you experience the same thing. A widening of perspective. That is the only threshold crossed. Some people want to experience more. Even those that have never tried. Knowledge is dangerous………………VERBOTEN!!!!!

Peace,
PL
 
that study proves very little, and not really anything as far as marijuana being a gateway drug. the study offers percentages on how many people smoke pot first or drink first.

Though part of me wants to say "no, pot is not a gateway drug. we all make our own free decisions," I will say that it is a gateway drug because it introduces a lot of people to being high, to getting a positive feeling off of an illegal substance. when you get high for the first time, you realize that a lot of the reasons your parents/school/law say that pot is bad are completely bullshit, and it makes you question how much of what they say about other drugs is bullshit. also, there's the "now i know (and enjoy) what being on pot is like...i wonder what lsd is like," factor. do i regret starting with pot and taking lsd? no. not at all.
 
The actual written report is in (as the article states you druggie into the media ;)) the American Journal of Psychiatry. Unfortunately my subscription just ran out so I went to the website and of course I'd have to pay, but I copied the abstract.

"Predictors of Marijuana Use in Adolescents Before and After Licit Drug Use: Examination of the Gateway Hypothesis
Ralph E. Tarter, Ph.D., Michael Vanyukov, Ph.D., Levent Kirisci, Ph.D., Maureen Reynolds, Ph.D. and Duncan B. Clark, M.D., Ph.D.

OBJECTIVE: The authors investigated whether the transition from licit drug use to marijuana use is determined by particular risk factors, as specified by the gateway hypothesis. They also evaluated the accuracy of the "gateway sequence" (illicit drug use following licit drugs) for predicting a diagnosis of substance use disorder. METHOD: Boys who consumed licit drugs only (N=99 ), boys who consumed licit drugs and then transitioned to marijuana use (gateway sequence) (N=97), and boys who used marijuana before using licit substances (alternative sequence) (N=28 ) were prospectively studied from ages 10–12 years through 22 years to determine whether specific factors were associated with each drug use pattern. The groups were compared on 35 variables measuring psychological, family, peer, school, and neighborhood characteristics. In addition, the utility of the gateway and alternative sequences in predicting substance use disorder was compared to assess their clinical informativeness. RESULTS: Twenty-eight (22.4% ) of the participants who used marijuana did not exhibit the gateway sequence, thereby demonstrating that this pattern is not invariant in drug-using youths. Among youths who did exhibit the gateway pattern, only delinquency was more strongly related to marijuana use than licit drug use. Specific risk factors associated with transition from licit to illicit drugs were not revealed. The alternative sequence had the same accuracy for predicting substance use disorder as the gateway sequence. CONCLUSIONS: Proneness to deviancy and drug availability in the neighborhood promote marijuana use. These findings support the common liability model of substance use behavior and substance use disorder. "

Peace, pot, and micro-dots,
PL
 
marijuana was sort of a gateway drug. but it's more complicated than sayin i just smoked some pot and then wanted to do all sorts of drugs

smoking pot got me hanging with a group of people who were doing harder drugs than me.
that in combination with realizing all the lies that school and "DARE" pumped into my head i kinda slowly became interested in other stuff.

looking back on it, marijuana was a gateway to what i consider the "good drugs" (pyschadelics, ecstacy) then ecstacy was the gateway to the "bad" drugs (coke, heroin, painkillers, benzos). once i switched from painkillers to heroin it was all over
 
Indeed, according to the study, interventions focusing on behavior modification may be more effective prevention tactics than current anti-drug initiatives. For example, providing guidance to parents – particularly those in high-risk neighborhoods – on how to boost their caregiving skills and foster bonding with their children, could have a measurable effect on a child’s likelihood to smoke marijuana. Also, early identification of children who exhibit antisocial tendencies could allow for interventions before drug use even begins.
DUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It took a 12-year study to figure that out? Well, I suppose it takes a 12-year study to convince the morons running the world of an easily observable fact.
 
I believe most of pot smokers have first tried tobacco/cigarettes before moving on to thc products. So clearly cigarettes are the real gateway drug here.
 
CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION. On these grounds alone, you must give me a 100-year, comprehensive study to prove causation.
 
I know it was much eaiser for me to obtain weed than alcohol because of the age factor. Not to many young teens have a 21 year old to supply them with alcohol. For me I started out with pharms, cigs, then weed.

I think the issue at hand now is all these pharms being abused. It is much eaiser for a kid to save his ADD perscription, or go inside the medicine cabinit and get some painkillers. If anything, there isn't enough emphasis on how abusable these are. I can't think of a safe way to tell kids either. Every video or lecture I've heard is about how easy it is to get drugs. Telling a kid they may have drugs just sitting in their house is pretty appealing. I know the day I heard drugs were just sitting in my house, I tried every pill I could get my hands on. All thanks goes to D.A.R.E telling me I had them!
 
Icculus said:
that study proves very little, and not really anything as far as marijuana being a gateway drug. the study offers percentages on how many people smoke pot first or drink first.

Though part of me wants to say "no, pot is not a gateway drug. we all make our own free decisions," I will say that it is a gateway drug because it introduces a lot of people to being high, to getting a positive feeling off of an illegal substance. when you get high for the first time, you realize that a lot of the reasons your parents/school/law say that pot is bad are completely bullshit, and it makes you question how much of what they say about other drugs is bullshit. also, there's the "now i know (and enjoy) what being on pot is like...i wonder what lsd is like," factor. do i regret starting with pot and taking lsd? no. not at all.

This isn't a problem with the drugs, its a problem with education. When schools/DARE teach us that "drugs" are a single entity and equally evil, thats what follows. Its only a gateway drug in the respect that we have created the conditions for it to be one in our "prevention" programs.
 
pot can definitely act as a gateway drug. does everyone who tries marijuana become a heroin addict? of course not. but as has been said, using marijuana can lead into a group of people who use other drugs and you might one day decide try one. furthermore, since pot has psychedelic qualities to it, trying pot is often the first step toward leading someone to becoming interested in psychedelics (at least it was in my case) and lastly, if you become a heavy pot smoker you often eventually become tired of the pot high and move on to other drugs (at least thats what happened to me and my friends). so pot is a gateway drug in my opinion.
 
college_dropout said:
Marijuana is a gateway drug for some, not for all. It was for me, as well as many other Bluelighters.



Exactly. It's really got nothing to do with THC. It's more to do with psychology and a person's environment.


i was gonna wait until i finished reading eveyrthing everyone said, but this basically sums up my point.

physiologically, marijuana has no "gateway" effect, but mentally i dont think it can be argued that it isnt, atleast in many examples. the real gateway drug is probobly alcohol, but since its legal, lets just talk about marijuana.

i will use my own experience as an example, as well as the experiences of my close friends during that period f my life.

first time smoking weed was with my cousin, about a year or two after the first time drinking. smoke weed for a while without trying any other drug, but grew to love the alternate state in which my mind resided whilst high. started wondering about other drugs, not because thc told me to or anything, but because i because curious as to how they felt, and also had many new "pothead" friends who had experimented with other substances.

all in all, marijuana could be concidered a gateway drug, if only because it exposes adolecents to the drug culture, and at a young age it is hard to regulate ones self. as an adult, smoking pot for the first time, it would be easier to leave it at that, but as a kid its alot harder to say no.
 
In my opinion weed is not a gateway drug, there are 2 main reasons someone who does/has smoked weed will be more likely to use other illicit drugs.

The first is their morals, they obviously do not believe that it is immoral to break the law and/or social norms to make themselves feel good through the use of drugs it is only logical that people who tried marijuana would more likely be open to the use of other drugs BUT the marijuana does not cause this.

The Second reason is access, people who smoke marijuana obviously have access to it and because they know people who deal in drugs they are more likely to have access to a range of other illicit drugs and therefore have the oppurtunity to explore their interest in them. just like somebody who has easy access to alcohol or cigarretes will be more likely to drink or smoke.
 
I've said it before and will say it again, marijuana is only given the title of 'gateway drug' cause its one of the most popular/easiest to get.
 
Cannabis is a gateway drug, pure and simply, as a product and result of the prohibition and misinformation applied to it. The anti-drug people tend to lie or grossly distort the truth in order to get their point across, causing massive misconceptions as to the nature and safety of marijuana intoxication, and the fact that it's illegal makes a user/potential user have to have contacts with the drug underground.

Drug culture is the gateway. If pot was legal, there'd be no problem with it, as long as distinctions between marijuana and harder drugs like cocaine or heroin were made clear.
 
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