For the record?! What is your explanation for all the people who simply stop with alcohol consumption? It must be many thousands of times the number of those who never go beyond mar1juana-- for the record!
The only reason mar1juana is a 'gateway' drug is because when people try it and don't get schizophrenia or go insane and kill their parents with a hatchet or try to fly and kill themselves jumping off a building, they realise 'hey! If everything the DARE programme/my parents/other authority figures told me about pot was bullsh!t, maybe everything authority figures told me about *all drugs* is bullsh!t!' Which is what happened to me, basically.
the article itself is wack. this thread should read: "Proof that Mary Jane does lead to other drugs among twins in Australia" it is a very specific study, focusing on sets of twins in which 1 member of each set had experimented with mar1juana before the age of 17.
I think the point of the twin thing is it effectively removes genetics and heredity as a variable in the experiment. So it actually strengthens the experiment, rather than making it less valid.
I dont think I have totally agreed with any of your posts until now... You sir, are exactly right. When you first smoke pot, you are normally around people who may or may not be into harder drugs. Once you are "into" the scene, if one of your toking buddies happen to have an 8-ball and starts lining out a few, you may be inclined to say "hey why not, lets see what this buzz is like". It isnt a matter that pot makes you *more* likely to try harder drugs, if you are inclined to want a mind-altering experience, you are around people that know how to get ahold of other drugs.. and like dimsie said....once you realize that they crap the establishment feeds you about drugs is just a load of hooey...you might want to try it to see what it's like. But to just lump all people into a blanket claim is plain wrong. I toked for 15 years, and I knew LOTS of people that wouldn't touch anything harder than alcohol or pot..they wanted no part of coke or acid or anything like that. I would even go as far as to say that they majority of tokers I know will not touch anything stronger...
damn,, noedit... this wuate from the article does at least admit that the factors I talk about have something to do with the likelyhood of harder drug use...I think the first statement is a load of hooey..the bolded part is why imo people that smoke pot also might be inclined to try harder stuff..
That depends on what culture you are from. Many Native Americans use mar1juana as a part of their culture. A case could also be made that with the number of users in America today that it is also a part of today's American culture. Don't forget that alcohol was at one time illegal in the US and it was not made legal until they passed a law allowing the US Gov to tax alcohol. Once they get enough people in Congress to pass a law allowing the Gov to tax mar1juana it will be made legal. Also the effects of alcohol on a person are much worse than the effects of mar1juana. How many times have we all seen people get violent, and kill people when they are drunk? I have never seen anyone want to fight, and kill someone when they are high. Weed takes away all your motivation to do such things.
True, I know people who have smoked pot, and I am pretty sure they wouldn't touch any harder stuff. It really is a cultural argument- is America ready to accept the pot culture into the mainstream? I doubt it. Even though biologically it is not very harmful, Americans in general don't want to welcome all of the people associated with pot into the mainstream. I don't want to legalize it and have pot dealers in my neighborhood. It could change over the years and become more accepted though.
Nonsense. If pot were legalized, pot dealers would be out of business since pot would be avilable in stores.
Exactly. Legalizing pot would put many drug dealers out of business so in effect you wouldn't have to worry about dealers in your neighborhood. That's unless you consider 7-11 and Stop & Go dealers because mar1juana cigarettes would more than likely be sold in a similar way to tobacco cigarettes.
How about drug dealers wo are looking for some customers of harder drugs? And I thought legalization didn't involve selling cheap pot in gas stations- that sounds even worse and I doubt people would like that idea. I thought most ideas involved just de-criminalization.
