Alcohol is THE gateway drug.
I once went to a pot rally. Outside the Democratic convention in San Fran actually. Anyway, thre was a Doctor there, and he said "Use more bongs!". Said it was healthier
Should Pot Be Legalized?
by minimus 177 Replies latest jw friends
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SixofNine
So introducing even more people to pot could very well create more people users of the more harder drugs and potentially create attics of those drugs.
How can pot "create" users of harder drugs? There is zero evidence of a "gateway effect". zero. That a person who will not try marijuana will also not try other drugs is sort of a given.
What has happened in societies where marijuana is either legal, or much more decriminalized than in the U.S., Homerovah?
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Homerovah the Almighty
So you think society would be better off, and justice would be served, if you had been imprisoned Homerovah?
No were not talking about simple procession but more of the commercialization of it .
Answer to your second question is no, I think all drug possessions should be decriminalized but
perhaps a mandatory program in rehabilitation be in place instead.
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purplesofa
This is a very interesting study done in Amsterdam, I only posted the conclusion, but I think the whole article is worth reading.
purps
http://www.cedro-uva.org/lib/sas.patterns.html
Patterns of cannabis use in Amsterdam among experienced cannabis users
Conclusions
Sustained high level marijuana use (more than 10 grams per month) is relatively rare. Only 5.5 percent reports a high level of use during the last three months prior to the interview. But, thirty-three percent of experienced cannabis users report ever having used at a high level at some point during his or her career. 43 percent reports to have quit at time of interview. Decreasing level of use over time — when cannabis users grow older — or quitting altogether applies to more than half of all respondents.
Although 45 percent of the experienced cannabis users we interviewed report having first hand knowledge of negative effects of hashish or marijuana on one or more aspects of life, this did not lead to an escalation of problems. In fact all respondents but one were able to regulate their cannabis use on their own, either by quitting or cutting down their use, or applying stricter rules to their use.
Sixty-five percent of experienced cannabis users experiment with other drugs. Frequent or current other drug use is rare. Other drug use might be repeated as long as it fits into the lifestyle of the user. With decreasing levels of cannabis use, what ever other drug use has existed disappears or almost disappears.
edited to add
Other drug use
The assumption that people who use cannabis, inevitably proceed to hard-drugs (the so-called Gateway Theory or Stepping Stone Hypothesis) can be more or less tested with the data we gathered in the Amsterdam cannabis survey. Among the group of cannabis users in Amsterdam we find higher use of other illicit drugs than with persons who never used cannabis (Cohen and Sas, 1996) If we look at the life time prevalence of other drug use, we see that 65 percent in our sample of experienced cannabis users have experience with one or more other drugs.[5] Lifetime prevalence of illicit drugs among experienced cannabis users is significantly higher than in the general population of Amsterdam, but also higher than in the total group of cannabis users. In the latter group we found that 25% has lifetime experience with other drugs. However, if we look at the prevalence of other illicit drug use in the group of experienced cannabis users during the last three months prior to the interview, we see that the vast majority (over 90 percent) is not currently using these other drugs.
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SixofNine
I'm curious about the comparison between societies where marijuana is legal or decriminalized vs the U.S. and Canada (although Canada has decriminalized pot to a large extent relative to the U.S., so that's a decent comparison too).
What are your findings in those comparisons, Homerovah?
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Homerovah the Almighty
Well to use Denmark as an example Six there has been a stiffing up of their drug laws in that country, some of it has been spear headed
by the county's health officials.
I guess I hold my viewpoint why introduce a known addictive substance and make it readily available, when there are so many other drugs floating
around that people are having trouble with.
There is already a long list of illicit drugs out there that have caused serious damaging effect toward many lives, most unfortunately have
been the younger ones of are population..
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beksbks
Dude, one of my best experiences ever. Early '84. I worked at B of A in San Francisco, the drive up window for heaven's sake! Most of you probably don't even remember when we had those, before ATM's. Anyway, a customer comes up, and I said "hey you're the guy that lives across the way from me, you have a garden on the roof, huh? A gaaaaardennnn???" He was like "Can you see it!!??" I said " not at all, but I figure that's what you guys are up there tending all the time". So he leaves, and a half hour later, he's back, and throws a bud into the little drawer. His own homegrown stuff, he was so proud. I nearly passed out!! I'm at work, in a bank, and I now have a huge bud of the stinkiest stickiest sweetest indica you could ever want to see. Recovered, put it away, and had a lovely evening on a hill overlooking the bay.
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beksbks
I guess I hold my viewpoint why introduce a known addictive substance and make it readily available, when there are so many other drugs floating around that people are having trouble with.
This is the point Homer, it IS readily available. With no restrictions. Because those who are trafficking are under the radar. Why not legalize and regulate the hell out of it?
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beksbks
By the way, I think my marriage might have been saved if my ex husband had not been addicted to pot. I will never know.
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Homerovah the Almighty
Sure there are problems with people's abuse of pot in the legal counties , then wouldn't it make sense when you compare
the populations between a small country and a large one like the States
the greater populated one would have to endure more people with addiction problems.
Of course there many pot users today that don't touch hard drugs, I just think it bares to remember the not
so bright ones that will venture themselves to the harder drugs.