Pot not gateway!

[StellarP]

Now all the naysayers can read it in print since thats all some believe!
Not really news.

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/addiction/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100263015&GT1=31036.





Cheers
StellarP

 

[MCI]

Pot is definitely a gateway drug to becoming the President of the United States

 

[stihgnobevoli]

article no longer available.

 

[trichrider]

the true 'gateway drugs' are cigarettes and alcohol! Mainstream media doesn't even acknowledge these as drugs! Where is the FDA to straighten things out(in the backroom counting monies)?
Marijuana use does not lead to other drugs, but may interest users in other methods of intoxication, thereby lending itself to this moniker.
The label is designated to maintain prohibition. Period.

 

[thinman]

its truly ironic that marijuana is considered to be a gateway drug. as stated above, the two main gateway drugs are alcohol and tobacco, and these are usually provided by family members. ever allowed a child to sip on your wine at thanksgiving? think little bobby looks cool puffing on grandpa's pipe?

 

[whodair]

pot is the gateway...to the munchies !!!

pot is the gateway...to the munchies !!!

 

[whodair]

beer is the gateway to prostitution

beer is the gateway to prostitution

...or drunken sluttiness...

thank you, alcohol !!

 

[vta]

The Myth That Will Not Die

The Myth That Will Not Die

Marijuana as a Gateway Drug: The Myth That Will Not Die

Author
Maia Szalavitz
Source
Time Magazine

Of all the arguments that have been used to demonize marijuana, few have been more powerful than that of the "gateway effect": the notion that while marijuana itself may not be especially dangerous, it ineluctably leads to harder drugs like heroin and cocaine. Even Nick Kristof — in a column favoring marijuana legalization — alluded to it this week in the New York Times.

In what is known as the “to be sure” paragraph, where op-ed writers cite the arguments of opponents, he wrote:

"I have no illusions about drugs. One of my childhood friends in Yamhill, Ore., pretty much squandered his life by dabbling with marijuana in ninth grade and then moving on to stronger stuff. And yes, there's some risk that legalization would make such dabbling more common.
The idea that marijuana may be the first step in a longer career of drug use seems plausible at first: when addicts tell their histories, many begin with a story about marijuana. And there's a strong correlation between marijuana use and other drug use: a person who smokes marijuana is more than 104 times more likely to use cocaine than a person who never tries pot, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse."

The problem here is that correlation isn't cause. Hell's Angels motorcycle gang members are probably more 104 times more likely to have ridden a bicycle as a kid than those who don't become Hell's Angels, but that doesn't mean that riding a two-wheeler is a "gateway" to joining a motorcycle gang. It simply means that most people ride bikes and the kind of people who don't are highly unlikely to ever ride a motorcycle.

Scientists long ago abandoned the idea that marijuana causes users to try other drugs: as far back as 1999, in a report commissioned by Congress to look at the possible dangers of medical marijuana, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences wrote:
Patterns in progression of drug use from adolescence to adulthood are strikingly regular. Because it is the most widely used illicit drug, marijuana is predictably the first illicit drug most people encounter. Not surprisingly, most users of other illicit drugs have used marijuana first. In fact, most drug users begin with alcohol and nicotine before marijuana — usually before they are of legal age.

In the sense that marijuana use typically precedes rather than follows initiation of other illicit drug use, it is indeed a "gateway" drug. But because underage smoking and alcohol use typically precede marijuana use, marijuana is not the most common, and is rarely the first, "gateway" to illicit drug use. There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs.

Since then, numerous other studies have failed to support the gateway idea. Every year, the federal government funds two huge surveys on drug use in the population. Over and over they find that the number of people who try marijuana dwarfs that for cocaine or heroin. For example, in 2009, 2.3 million people reported trying pot — compared with 617,000 who tried cocaine and 180,000 who tried heroin.

So what accounts for the massive correlation between marijuana use and use of other drugs? One key factor is taste. People who are extremely interested in altering their consciousness are likely to want to try more than one way of doing it. If you are a true music fan, you probably won't stick to listening to just one band or even a single genre — this doesn't make lullabies a gateway to the Grateful Dead, it means that people who really like music probably like many different songs and groups.

Second is marijuana's illegality: you aren't likely to be able to find a heroin dealer if you can't even score weed. Compared with pot dealers, sellers of hard drugs tend to be even less trusting of customers they don't know, in part because they face greater penalties. But if you've proved yourself by regularly purchasing marijuana, dealers will happily introduce to you to their harder product lines if you express interest, or help you find a friend of theirs who can.

Holland began liberalizing its marijuana laws in part to close this particular gateway — and indeed now the country has slightly fewer young pot-smokers who move on to harder drugs compared with other nations, including the U.S. A 2010 Rand Institute report titled "What Can We Learn from the Dutch Cannabis Coffeeshop Experience?" found that there was "some evidence" for a "weakened gateway" in The Netherlands, and concluded that the data "clearly challenge any claim that the Dutch have strengthened the gateway to hard drug use."

Of course, that's not the gateway argument favored by supporters of our current drug policy — but it is the one supported by science.

 

[supermanlives]

cofee was my gateway drug. caffine man

 

[EliTheBarrowBoy]

Water is hard to kick.

 

[Japanfreakier]

It was certainly a gateway drug for me, as soon as I tried it and realized the government was totally lying about it I got curious about other drugs. So I would say the rhetoric was the actually cause but still pretty close to the claim. Of course I don't do other drugs anymore....unless somebody wants to give me some for free.

 

[kmk420kali]

Let's see....
First I done Alcohol...Slo Gin to be exact-- I think I was about 11--
Then I did some PCP...(The summer between 6th and 7th Grade)
Then I smoked pot...around the same time--
I also started Ciggs that Summer--
Didn't try Heroin till I was almost 13--
True Stories...DEAL--
Gateway my ASS!!! It was merely a substance I tried...among many others--

 

[guest396]

vta, you don't know what you are talking about. of course it's a gateway drug, i went from smoking shwag to some of the best dank on the face of the earth and every time i smoked some i had to have some more just like it or better. also i'm kinda a pot snob, so i'm not easy to please. like my name says, it's OH=O and GEE=G(OG), not mexi brick weed.

oh yeah and the myth is also true it makes me want to fuck white women.....wait does that apply to me? i think i'm already supposed to fuck white women, so my logic may be flawed.

 

[Hash Zeppelin]

The only thing it is a gateway to is safe stress and pain relief.

 

[Chronic Future]

ciggs is the real gateway if there is such a thing everyone when they were young stole some ciggs from somewhere and smoked them but did not inhale just trying look like a adult I think if your going to use hard drugs its in your dna some of my friends started smoking weed same time as me and moved on to hard shit like crank and crack but all I ever wanted was weed its all about the person imo.

 

[CANNATOPIA]

I don't believe in the "Gate Way" Theory. I say its utter nonsense.

 

[supermanlives]

pussy was my gateway . this chick told me if i got us drunk she would do me. i have never looked back. while pussy aint a drug it sure is addictive

 

[CANNATOPIA]

while pussy aint a drug it sure is addictive

lolol

 

[Encore]

It was certainly a gateway drug for me, as soon as I tried it and realized the government was totally lying about it I got curious about other drugs. So I would say the rhetoric was the actually cause but still pretty close to the claim. Of course I don't do other drugs anymore....unless somebody wants to give me some for free.

 

[Storm Crow]

Gateways can be exits, too........

Marijuana To Control Alcohol Abuse (news - 2010)
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/12/01/marijuana-to-control-alcohol-abuse/9863.html

Cannabis-based Drugs can help you quit Smoking (news - 2006)
http://www.healthjockey.com/2008/03/11/cannabis-based-drugs-can-help-you-quit-smoking/

Cannabis as a substitute for alcohol and other drugs. (full - 2009)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2795734/?tool=pmcentrez

Oaklanders Quitting Oxycontin with Cannabis (news - 2010)
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/Legal...2/oaklanders-quitting-oxycontin-with-cannabis

Marijuana could be an “exit drug” (news - 2010)
http://newmexicoindependent.com/52915/marijuana-could-be-an-exit-drug


(from "Granny Storm Crow's MMJ Reference List - July 2010)