|
 
Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! Please  login or  register to post messages and view our members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, encrypted messages, file attachments, board customizations, and much more!
|
 Mushouse
Mycomancer
Registered: 06/26/06
Posts: 213
Last seen: 7 months, 27 days
|
 Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil
#6538408 - 02/06/07 10:26 PM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil
Tyreol Gardner first smoked marijuana when he was 13.
"The main reason I tried it was curiosity," Gardner recalls. "I wanted to see what it felt like."
He liked what it felt like, and by age 15, he was smoking pot every week. He supported his habit with the money his parents gave him for getting straight A's on his report card. They didn't have a clue.
"By 16, when I got my license, it turned into a fairly everyday thing," says Gardner, now 24. "I believe it is very addictive, especially for people with addictive personalities."
Millions of baby boomers might disagree. After all, they smoked marijuana — the country's most popular illicit drug — in their youth and quit with little effort.
But studies have shown that when regular pot smokers quit, they do experience withdrawal symptoms, a characteristic used to predict addictiveness. Most users of more addictive drugs, such as cocaine or heroin, started with marijuana, scientists say, and the earlier they started, the greater their risk of becoming addicted.
Many studies have documented a link between smoking marijuana and the later use of "harder" drugs such as heroin and cocaine, but that doesn't necessarily mean marijuana causes addiction to harder drugs.
"Is marijuana a gateway drug? That question has been debated since the time I was in college in the 1960s and is still being debated today," says Harvard University psychiatrist Harrison Pope, director of the Biological Psychiatry Laboratory at Boston's McLean Hospital. "There's just no way scientifically to end that argument one way or the other."
That's because it's impossible to separate marijuana from the environment in which it is smoked, short of randomly assigning people to either smoke pot or abstain — a trial that would be grossly unethical to conduct.
"I would bet you that people who start smoking marijuana earlier are more likely to get into using other drugs," Pope says. Perhaps people who are predisposed to using a variety of drugs start smoking marijuana earlier than others do, he says.
Besides alcohol, often the first drug adolescents abuse, marijuana may simply be the most accessible and least scary choice for a novice susceptible to drug addiction, says Virginia Tech psychologist Bob Stephens.
No matter which side you take in the debate over whether marijuana is a "gateway" to other illicit drugs, you can't argue with "indisputable data" showing that smoking pot affects neuropsychological functioning, such as hand-eye coordination, reaction time and memory, says H. Westley Clark, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Adolescents have the greatest rates of marijuana use, and they also have the greatest amount to lose by using marijuana, scientists say.
"Adolescence is about risk-taking, experimentation," says Yasmin Hurd, professor of psychiatry, pharmacology and biological chemistry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York who last summer published a rat study that found early exposure to THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, led to a greater sensitivity to heroin in adulthood.
"All of the studies clearly show the earlier someone starts taking marijuana, the greater their vulnerability to addiction disorders and psychiatric disorders. I'm so shocked still that so many parents are not considering enough the dangers of early drug use."
Use is more common
Marijuana use by adolescents in the USA declined slightly from 2005 to 2006, but it's still more common than it was 15 years ago, according to "Monitoring the Future," an ongoing study by the University of Michigan that tracks people from the eighth grade through young adulthood. It's paid for by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, or NIDA, part of the National Institutes of Health.
In 2006, 11.7% of eighth-graders said they had used marijuana during the past year, compared with 6.2% of eighth-graders in 1991. Among 12th-graders, 31.5% said they had used marijuana in the previous year; in 1991, 23.9% said they had.
"You are at school, and your main job as an adolescent is to learn and memorize," NIDA director Nora Volkow says. But if you keep becoming intoxicated by smoking marijuana, she says, you'll fall further and further behind in your studies. "How are you going to catch up?"
In a study comparing heavy marijuana users with people who'd had minimal exposure to the drug, Pope found that the former had lower verbal IQ scores than the latter. In a 2003 paper, he and his co-authors postulated three potential reasons: innate differences between the groups in cognitive ability that predated first marijuana use, an actual toxic effect of marijuana on the developing brain or poorer learning of conventional cognitive skills by young marijuana users who skipped school.
Wasted years
By the time Gardner was a junior, he started skipping high school regularly to smoke pot. "I would always find somebody who wasn't at school that day and get high with them," he says. Gardner says he missed 50 days in the first semester of his senior year. His parents discovered his stash of marijuana and sent him to a psychiatrist. His grades plummeted; his college plans evaporated.
When he was 16 or 17, Gardner says, he was charged at least twice with possession of marijuana and underage possession of alcohol. The court sent him to a three-month outpatient treatment program. He attended weekly sessions and underwent urine checks.
But it didn't stick. He celebrated the end of the program by getting high on pot and alcohol. By 18, "I was pretty heavy into cocaine," Gardner says. Crystal meth and intravenous heroin followed.
"I was always looking for the ultimate high. It was like a constant search, and I never found it. … By the end, it was a living hell for me."
Finally, Gardner says, his parents persuaded him to enter an inpatient treatment program in Winchester, Va. They spoke from experience. When he was 8, Gardner says, his father stopped using drugs while in prison for possession. "My mom got clean while he was in prison."
Gardner says he has been off drugs and alcohol for 14 months. He works in a Winchester factory that makes patio decking. He graduated high school because a teacher took pity on him and let him try to make up the work he had missed. More than six years after graduating, Gardner hopes to go to college to study psychology.
Research shows marijuana users are significantly less satisfied with the quality of their lives than non-users, a revelation "as telling as any very fancy story of molecules," Volkow says.
Yet, she says, "I think there is a general sense that marijuana is a relatively benign drug and does not produce addiction." Although over the past decade, "research clearly has provided unequivocal evidence that … some people can become addicted to marijuana."
Stephens has conducted seven large treatment studies of marijuana dependence, or addiction. "There's never any shortage of people who meet this definition," says Stephens, who edited the 2006 book Cannabis Dependence.
Pot as predecessor
Pope has studied heavy marijuana users, whom he defines as having smoked pot at least 5,000 times, or once a day for nearly 14 years. On average, his subjects, ages 30 to 55, reported having smoked marijuana 20,000 times.
Pope required the volunteers to abstain from smoking pot for 28 days and used urine samples for confirmation.
"We had them rate various symptoms on a day-by-day basis," he says. "We were able to show there is a clear withdrawal syndrome."
His research found the most common symptom of marijuana withdrawal was irritability, followed by trouble sleeping and loss of appetite. Symptoms began to subside after a week and disappeared by the end of two weeks.
"We've had some people in our study who reported quite a lot of craving. They were quite miserable not being allowed to smoke marijuana," Pope says, although "certainly, one does not see craving even remotely to the degree you would … with heroin or alcohol or cocaine."
Marijuana today is more potent and therefore more toxic than marijuana grown in the 1970s, Volkow says. Back then, she says, plants typically contained only 2% THC. Today, she says, marijuana plants typically contain 15% THC.
Even if today's marijuana is more potent, Stephens says, he's not convinced that makes a difference.
"The evidence of its increased potency is overrated," he says. Samples of marijuana grown in the 1970s might have appeared to be less potent than they actually were because they weren't fresh when tested. And, Stephens speculates, marijuana users might just smoke more of less-potent pot, and vice versa.
A family problem
Rachel Kinsey says drug addiction runs in her mother's family, although not in her immediate family. Kinsey, 24, started drinking alcohol at 14 and smoking marijuana at 15 — "definitely a predecessor for everything else I used." She began using Ecstasy and cocaine at 17, then heroin at 18.
"I did graduate high school, and I went off to college, but I withdrew after a month," says Kinsey, of Richmond, Va. She used the diagnosis of mononucleosis she'd received the week before college as an excuse.
"I don't think I was ready for the responsibility, and I wanted to continue to use while I was in college. I was at the point where I just didn't care about college. I was already using heroin."
She moved in with her boyfriend and his father, both of whom used heroin. At 19, she got pregnant. She moved back in with her mother, substituted methadone for heroin and gave the baby up for adoption. Practically as soon as she delivered, she was back to using heroin.
About five months after her son was born in May 2003, Kinsey entered inpatient addiction treatment. During the 30-day program, she became involved with a man who went back to using cocaine after ending treatment. Kinsey says she didn't want to go back to using cocaine or heroin, "but for some reason I thought it was OK to drink and go back to smoking weed."
When she turned 21 in fall 2003, "it was off to the races. For some reason, I felt (turning 21) gave me the right to drink if I wanted to."
From January to August 2004, Kinsey says, she was charged three times with driving under the influence of alcohol and marijuana.
'Not worth the risk'
With the help of another stay at a treatment center, Kinsey hasn't used drugs or alcohol since Aug. 25, 2004, the day after her last DUI arrest. She's halfway toward graduating from nursing school and works as a nurse tech in a hospital. For the first time, she has signed a lease on an apartment and pays rent.
She can't drive until September 2008 and then only to work, to school and to 12-step meetings.
If she had to do it all over again, she says, she never would have started smoking marijuana.
"You never know where it's going to lead you," she says. "You don't know that you're not going to become an addict, so it's not worth the risk."
|
ExplosiveMango
HallucinogenusDigitallus
 
Registered: 07/12/05
Posts: 2,962
Last seen: 1 day, 8 hours
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: Mushouse]
#6538448 - 02/06/07 10:35 PM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Woooooooo propaganda news time!
--------------------
Know your self.
Know your substance.
Know your source.
Stop knowing what you are and realize what you could be.
|
moho456
The Past Inside The Present
Registered: 06/10/06
Posts: 194
Loc: Translinguistic Matter
Last seen: 1 month, 13 hours
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: ExplosiveMango]
#6538481 - 02/06/07 10:43 PM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
"But studies have shown that when regular pot smokers quit, they do experience withdrawal symptoms, a characteristic used to predict addictiveness."
I'd love to see that source.
--------------------
When the going gets wierd, the wierd turn pro.
I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.
Hunter S. Thompson - RIP
|
SuperD
THE SPIRIT OFTRUTH
Registered: 10/05/03
Posts: 2,477
Loc: TX
Last seen: 3 hours, 43 minutes
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: moho456]
#6538512 - 02/06/07 10:51 PM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
There are no doubt some minor withdrawal symptoms if you are a heavy user going on an extended break. Restlessness at night is one of the most common to occur. I don't think the article was meaning physical withdrawals like you would see with drugs such as heroin etc.
--------------------
I'd like you to meet my local drug dealer 
Bruce Campbell for a day! said: Go misidentify a mushroom please.
|
Nephlyte
Misfortunate One
Registered: 10/11/05
Posts: 974
Loc: South Texas
Last seen: 14 hours, 42 minutes
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: Mushouse]
#6538534 - 02/06/07 10:58 PM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Mushouse said:
Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil
Most users of more addictive drugs, such as cocaine or heroin, started with marijuana, scientists say, and the earlier they started, the greater their risk of becoming addicted.
Thats right. Scientists said it.
--------------------
"To do right is to know what you want. Now when you are dissatisfied with yourself it's because you are after something you don't really want. What objects are you proposing to yourself? Are they the objects you really value? If they are not, you are cheating yourself. I don't meant that if you chose to pursue the objects you most value, you will attain them; of course not. Your experience will tell you that. But success in getting after much labor what you really don't care for is the bitterest and most ridiculous failure." -George Santayana
|
Liquid_Dimension
Lighthousekeeper
Registered: 02/15/04
Posts: 3,539
Loc: Radioactive state
Last seen: 7 hours, 48 minutes
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: Nephlyte]
#6538770 - 02/06/07 11:53 PM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Psychologically dependent...yes,addicting? get real.
--------------------
 
 
|
 ThirdEyeOpening
Lost In My Head
Registered: 08/24/04
Posts: 1,178
Loc: How the fuck should i kno...
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: Mushouse]
#6538895 - 02/07/07 12:26 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Hmm...withdrawl symptoms, i can agree with all of the symtoms they listed. I also only feel them when i have been smoking like a chimney, and then stop suddenly.
Fuck, caffene, deny any person who has been drinking coffie for 15 years, i have a feeling there going to be suffering withdrawl.
I bet adrenaline withdrawl is a thousand times worse. Even dopamine, which is a natural reward for eating food, and one link thought of for food addicts. And both of these are proven to be quite addictive. Yet i see no bans on extream sports, food eating contests, ect.
Guess what people, every single substance, molecule, drug, ect. that we put into our bodies has a chance of becoming addictive.
LIFE IS ADDICTIVE!!
--------------------
Only two things are eternal, the universe and human stupidity. Im not to sure about the former. -Einstein
Of course the rules need to be enforced, but the goal of law and order should be to create a just society, not to enforce laws. -Unknown
'If it rusts, it can never be trusted
If its owner fails to control it, it will cut him
Yes, pride is like a blade"
|
Boom
analyst/therapist
Registered: 06/16/04
Posts: 10,628
Loc: US and A
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: ThirdEyeOpening]
#6538947 - 02/07/07 12:44 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
I get wicked water cravings when I don't have it for a while..
|
Seuss
Error: divide byzero
Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 16,838
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 11 minutes, 21 seconds
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: Mushouse]
#6539150 - 02/07/07 03:12 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Alcohol is addictive and it is legal. Caffeine is addictive and it is legal. Nicotine is addictive and it is legal. Cannabis is habit forming, not addictive, but it is illegal.
--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.
|
jdirty
Dirty SoufShr00min'
Registered: 10/20/06
Posts: 572
Loc: S.W. Louisiana
Last seen: 1 year, 3 months
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: Seuss]
#6539173 - 02/07/07 04:04 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
i would like to personally bitch slap the stupid fucks that came up with the idea of making alcohol legal and weed illegal. If it's a group of people, I might need a hand.
And WE got the proof. What is it now, 500,000 deaths per year that is alcohol related? How many deaths per year that is marijuana related?
fuckin stupid gov is bass ackwards.
--------------------
I HATE people who take drugsLike cops, DEA agents and custom officials
|
Stownio
Registered: 02/05/07
Posts: 201
Loc: Hoffland
Last seen: 9 months, 2 days
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: jdirty]
#6539264 - 02/07/07 05:46 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
lol once in a while they scoop up a story of some guy who started smoking in his early teens nd ended up with heroin to try nd scare off teens..pretty much like the take 3 trips nd u re legally insane propaganda hehe
Well bout the withrawal symptoms..some ppl get them some ppl dont. When i need a break nd quit smoking or run out of money for the first couple of days i feel like a really small headache..not really pain just as if something was pressing againt your head nd find it bit hard to sleep thats all.
At the moment i havent been smoking for a couple of weeks..i still havent felt the need for metadone hehe.
--------------------
god is 3 letters and so is LSD
|
blewmeanie
Baruch haba b'Shem Adonai
Registered: 10/01/06
Posts: 6,913
Loc: Gainesville Fl
Last seen: 2 hours, 56 minutes
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: ThirdEyeOpening]
#6539329 - 02/07/07 06:09 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Even dopamine, which is a natural reward for eating food, and one link thought of for food addicts. Quote:
Damn how did we overlook this for so long. I say its time for a ban on this evil gateway drug you call food.
--------------------
Gazing through the
night and its stars,
or the grass and its bugs,
I know in my heart these swarms
are the craft of surpassing wisdom.
|
dedjam
Electro Penguin
Registered: 12/14/05
Posts: 2,138
Loc: Moralton, Statesota
Last seen: 8 days, 18 hours
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: blewmeanie]
#6539379 - 02/07/07 06:44 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Wow, that was from the USA today? I am a bit disappointed. Then again, I think people are slowly starting to catch on to the working of the propaganda "machine", and articles like this just make the lies MORE apparent to those on the sidelines of the issue.
Still makes me sick that a national publication can print something with little to no factual basis.
|
rawtoxic
Registered: 10/06/02
Posts: 2,049
Loc: smokey mountains
Last seen: 8 hours, 46 minutes
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: dedjam]
#6539421 - 02/07/07 07:13 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
I personally am want to quit smoking pot and am having a harder time than quitting using cocaine it may also be because I've quit everything else hard drugs, alcohol and this is my LAST thing 
|
ifarthazesmoke
Stranger
Registered: 01/16/07
Posts: 5
Last seen: 7 months, 18 days
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: rawtoxic]
#6539498 - 02/07/07 08:02 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
I do think marijuanna is a gateway drug simply because I have never met anyone who used other hard drugs (coke, crack, heroin, pcp) who didn't smoke weed before they did it. I'm not saying that marijuanna necessarily leads to harder drug use by everyone, just that it opens the gateway to other hard drugs.
|
OneMoreRobot3021
punky jewster
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 56,599
Loc: new york shitty
Last seen: 4 hours, 53 minutes
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: Nephlyte]
#6539504 - 02/07/07 08:08 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Nephlyte said:
Quote:
Mushouse said:
Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil
Most users of more addictive drugs, such as cocaine or heroin, started with marijuana, scientists say, and the earlier they started, the greater their risk of becoming addicted.
Thats right. Scientists said it.
ooooooOOOoo!
--------------------
The Drug Policy Alliance  Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies
"The psychedelic experience - it has a tremendous force to revivify the spirit, particularly because it is not an ideology. It is not something someone 'figured out.' It is an EXPERIENCE. And this is important to bear in mind." - McKenna.
"We're not mad, we're just doing what we want. You rigid thinkers can't recognize the healthy sanity of that." - Harlan Ellison, "Crackpots"
|
veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 6,529
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: ifarthazesmoke]
#6539508 - 02/07/07 08:10 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Scientific studies* show that marijuana is not a gateway drug. If there is a relationship between marijuana use and harder drugs, it is because marijuana is illegal and must usually be had from drug dealers who have access to these hard drugs.
*"The gateway isn't marijuana; it's laws that put marijuana into the same criminal underground with speed and heroin"
|
Stownio
Registered: 02/05/07
Posts: 201
Loc: Hoffland
Last seen: 9 months, 2 days
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: ifarthazesmoke]
#6539512 - 02/07/07 08:12 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
ifarthazesmoke said:
I do think marijuanna is a gateway drug simply because I have never met anyone who used other hard drugs (coke, crack, heroin, pcp) who didn't smoke weed before they did it.
I ve never met nyone who uses harder drugs or just marijuana who hasnt drank alcohol before..maybe we should make beer illegal too?
--------------------
god is 3 letters and so is LSD
|
dedjam
Electro Penguin
Registered: 12/14/05
Posts: 2,138
Loc: Moralton, Statesota
Last seen: 8 days, 18 hours
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: ifarthazesmoke]
#6539549 - 02/07/07 08:28 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
ifarthazesmoke said:
I do think marijuanna is a gateway drug simply because I have never met anyone who used other hard drugs (coke, crack, heroin, pcp) who didn't smoke weed before they did it. I'm not saying that marijuanna necessarily leads to harder drug use by everyone, just that it opens the gateway to other hard drugs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacies
Start reading.
|
oppression
potsmokeshroompopngunnut
Registered: 01/18/07
Posts: 92
Loc: south of the mason dixion...
Last seen: 1 month, 10 days
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: Mushouse]
#6539599 - 02/07/07 08:45 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
ifarthazesmoke said:
I do think marijuanna is a gateway drug simply because I have never met anyone who used other hard drugs (coke, crack, heroin, pcp) who didn't smoke weed before they did it. I'm not saying that marijuanna necessarily leads to harder drug use by everyone, just that it opens the gateway to other hard drugs.
Check your info b4 posting. Statistically, for every 104 Americans who have tried marijuana, there is only one regular user of cocaine, and less than one user of heroin. Marijuana is clearly a "terminus" rather than a gateway for the overwhelming majority of marijuana smokers.
Quote:
Mushouse said:
Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil
"I would bet you that people who start smoking marijuana earlier are more likely to get into using other drugs," Pope says.
WOW What a moron, I love how instead of just stating the data and letting it speak for its self this educated idiot just throws around assumptions. You know the other side gets anti pot ads why cant we ban together and make pro pot tv ads and stuff like that? I think normls great but it seems like tv would be the best way to reach the masses and educate them.
--------------------
‘Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.’"
|
ExplosiveMango
HallucinogenusDigitallus
Registered: 07/12/05
Posts: 2,962
Last seen: 1 day, 8 hours
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: ifarthazesmoke]
#6539681 - 02/07/07 09:14 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
ifarthazesmoke said:
I do think marijuanna is a gateway drug simply because I have never met anyone who used other hard drugs (coke, crack, heroin, pcp) who didn't smoke weed before they did it. I'm not saying that marijuanna necessarily leads to harder drug use by everyone, just that it opens the gateway to other hard drugs.
You, my friend, have been buying brainwashing for the low low price of free thought.
Gateway drug?
So you mean you do this drug and it makes you want other drugs? (wrong)
Gateway social drug?
More likely.
Because marijuana is illegal, when you go and hang out at the 'marijuana shop' you might just notice some of the other items they sell. Coke, Meth, E, LSD, Shrooms, K... You name it.
Did weed make you want these drugs?
Absolutely not.
Did the guy selling both weed and other items?
Likely.
The solution- LEGALIZE WEED!
--------------------
Know your self.
Know your substance.
Know your source.
Stop knowing what you are and realize what you could be.
|
ApJunkie
part-time Ninja
Registered: 08/17/06
Posts: 2,017
Loc: Loc:Loc:Loc:Loc:Loc:
Last seen: 4 hours, 45 minutes
|
Re: Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil [Re: ExplosiveMango]
#6539750 - 02/07/07 09:53 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
ExplosiveMango said:
Quote:
ifarthazesmoke said:
I do think marijuanna is a gateway drug simply because I have never met anyone who used other hard drugs (coke, crack, heroin, pcp) who didn't smoke weed before they did it. I'm not saying that marijuanna necessarily leads to harder drug use by everyone, just that it opens the gateway to other hard drugs.
You, my friend, have been buying brainwashing for the low low price of free thought.
Gateway drug?
So you mean you do this drug and it makes you want other drugs? (wrong)
Gateway social drug?
More likely.
Because marijuana is illegal, when you go and hang out at the 'marijuana shop' you might just notice some of the other items they sell. Coke, Meth, E, LSD, Shrooms, K... You name it.
Did weed make you want these drugs?
Absolutely not.
Did the guy selling both weed and other items?
Likely.
The solution- LEGALIZE WEED!
Well actually, Marijuana WAS a gateway drug for me. I was under the impression everything mind altering was terrible up until about my junior year in high school. I never drank, never smoked, got good grades, and watched all these losers smoke pot after school, and talk about their trips and just scoff at them.
Then one day my best friend (and still to this day... we're buying a house next semester) offered me a joint. I thought about it carefully and realized if he was doing it that I should give it a try (judge for myself. I was just biased, not stupid  ), and I found out it was wonderful.
I didn't drop out of school, I didn't kill my parents, I didn't get addicted and steal money... I realized it was all a lie.
And because of that realization that pot was relativley harmless, I wanted to try mushrooms and LSD. I have, and they were great, but if it wasn't for pot showing me the truth about all the propaganda lies, I would probably still think that.
--------------------
"No summit don't call me stupid when you don't know my back round."
-albino_shroom
Edited by ApJunkie (02/07/07 09:55 AM)
|
Mikeyyork
A+ Moron
Registered: 10/28/05
Posts: 3,347
Loc: Yorkshire, England
|
|
|
|
Previous
Index
Next
Threaded
Edit 
Reply 
Quote 
