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While I absolutely do believe marijuana should be completely legalized, I also absolutely believe it's a gateway drug going by my own experiences.
It's the simple fact that the weed smoker is putting themselves in a situation to be offered more drugs. You think drug dealers are nice, sweet people? No, they want to sell sell sell! My ex smoked a lot and I met 2 of his dealers and they always offered him 'harder' stuff. He started doing E on the weekends because it was offered and he wanted to try it. Another friend does acid here and there because a weed dealer offered to him, another does shrooms fairly regularly (maybe once a month). Luckily only a small fraction of my friends got hooked on something really hard (coke, heroin etc.) but it was ALWAYS the pot dealer or one of his buddies that offered it to him.
While I absolutely do believe marijuana should be completely legalized, I also absolutely believe it's a gateway drug going by my own experiences.
It's the simple fact that the weed smoker is putting themselves in a situation to be offered more drugs. You think drug dealers are nice, sweet people? No, they want to sell sell sell! My ex smoked a lot and I met 2 of his dealers and they always offered him 'harder' stuff. He started doing E on the weekends because it was offered and he wanted to try it. Another friend does acid here and there because a weed dealer offered to him, another does shrooms fairly regularly (maybe once a month). Luckily only a small fraction of my friends got hooked on something really hard (coke, heroin etc.) but it was ALWAYS the pot dealer or one of his buddies that offered it to him.
I think that in your example, it is not the weed that is the gateway to harder drugs, it is the prohibition of weed. If weed smokers were able to buy their marijuana from a legal outlet that didn't sell harder drugs, I believe that very few of them would actively seek out illegal drug dealers for the other, harder stuff.
The fact that our government sees fit to force weed smokers to do business with hard drug dealers in order to get their bud is what leads to the exposure and experimentation with other drugs.
A good case in point is what is going on with spice and bath salts. Drug users are actually seeking out and using dangerous substances that emulate other drugs just because they can be purchased legally, are easy to find and don't cause you to fail a drug test. Does anyone think that if marijuana was legal and sold at legitimate retail outlets that spice would have ever been invented?
100% of heavy drug users drank alcohol because Everyone in the general populous does as well, and Drug addicts where part of the general populous too.
It may be news in some places but, there are now, and have been for a long time, large groups of people that live in the US that don't drink, have never used alcohol, and because of personal, religious, or medical restrictions, never will. Some of them do however, indulge in drugs, legal and illegal, to excess. If that is true, and it is, than your generalization must be false.
I think that in your example, it is not the weed that is the gateway to harder drugs, it is the prohibition of weed. If weed smokers were able to buy their marijuana from a legal outlet that didn't sell harder drugs, I believe that very few of them would actively seek out illegal drug dealers for the other, harder stuff.
The fact that our government sees fit to force weed smokers to do business with hard drug dealers in order to get their bud is what leads to the exposure and experimentation with other drugs.
A good case in point is what is going on with spice and bath salts. Drug users are actually seeking out and using dangerous substances that emulate other drugs just because they can be purchased legally, are easy to find and don't cause you to fail a drug test. Does anyone think that if marijuana was legal and sold at legitimate retail outlets that spice would have ever been invented?
There are several studies that support the idea that if cannabis was separated from other drugs and legal, that cannabis users would tend to stay only with cannabis. Besides the studies, many people on City Data Forum have openly said that they have used cannabis for x number of years and never had the desire to try anything else. However, I prefer to go with the studies, when citing an example.
Anecdotal experiance, like Jet's, is too limited to offer a view into actual behavior of a population. A series of studies is much more reliable than one person's experiance or beliefs.
I've drank alcohol and never once had the desire to do crack or pot or meth.
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Hey Joe
