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Originally Posted by tpunx99GSX
Ok you cant talk for the rest of the night, that was just stupid. Your talking about addiction not being a gateway.
Being that everyone has been saying "by definition of gateway drug" i have a strong feeling that the Definition of a gateway drug is getting really blurred in all of this.
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First of all, the thing you are calling a gateway drug actually doesn't really reinforce the gateway theory, but they stepping stone theory, look it up sometime, interesting read. The gateway theory basically says that people don't do coke or heroin without first trying "lighter" drugs like alcohol or marijuana, but can stay in a stage of just use of alochol, or marijuana. The stepping stone theory is more in line with what you are saying, in which the different drugs represent stones in a river, and once you start you have to keep going one way or the other, either toward hard drug addiction, or sobriety. The way most of you seem to be describing the whole gateway thing is making it into a very black and white issue, when there is really just a whole shitload of gray.
Secondly, you picked a definition of a gateway drug that follows your argument, and happens to side with the "war on drugs" because the government never lies to us or anything...
Anyway, here is some information I found interesting while looking up information on gateway drugs.
Q: Does marijuana lead to the use of other drugs?
A: Long-term studies of high school students and their patterns of drug use show that very few young people use other illegal drugs without first trying marijuana. Using marijuana puts children and teens in contact with people who are users and sellers of other drugs. So there is more of a risk that a marijuana user will be exposed to and urged to try more drugs. However, most marijuana users do not go on to use other illegal drugs.
from
www.mentalhealth.com
STUDY SAYS MARIJUANA DOES NOT LEAD TO HARD DRUGS
WASHINGTON ( Reuters ) - Countering a basic principle of American anti-drug
policies, an independent U.S. study concluded on Monday that marijuana use
does not lead teenagers to experiment with hard drugs like heroin or
cocaine.
The study by the private, nonprofit RAND Drug Policy Research Center
rebutted the theory that marijuana acts as a so-called gateway drug to more
harmful narcotics, a key argument against legalizing pot in the United
States.
The researchers did not advocate easing restrictions in marijuana, but
questioned the focus on this substance in drug control efforts.
Using data from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse between 1982 and
1994, the study concluded teenagers who took hard drugs were predisposed to
do so whether they tried marijuana first or not.
"Kids get their first opportunity to use marijuana years before they get
their first exposure to hard drugs," said Andrew Morral, lead author of the
RAND study.
"Marijuana is not a gateway drug. It's just the first thing kids often come
across."
Morral said 50 percent of U.S. teenagers had access to marijuana by the age
of 16, while the majority had no exposure to cocaine, heroin or
hallucinogens until they were 20.
The study, published in the British journal Addiction, does not advocate
legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana, which has been linked to
side-effects including short-term memory loss.
But given limited resources, Morral said the U.S. government should
reconsider the prominence of marijuana in its much-publicized "war on
drugs."
"To a certain extent we are diverting resources away from hard drug
problems," he said. "Spending money on marijuana control may not be having
downstream consequences on the use of hard drugs."
Researchers say predisposition to drug use has been linked to genetic
factors and one's environment, including family dynamics and the
availability of drugs in the neighborhood.
Study done by RAND, their website is
www.rand.org
Here is a metaphor for what I am trying to explain, and shows how people misunderstand what a gateway drug really is.
A similar statistical relationship exists between other kinds of common and uncommon related activities. For example, most people who ride a motorcycle (a fairly rare activity) have ridden a bicycle (a fairly common activity). Indeed, the prevalence of motorcycle riding among people who have never ridden a bicycle is probably extremely low. However, bicycle riding does not cause motorcycle riding, and increases in the former will not lead automatically to increases in the latter.
from
www.medicalmarijuanaprocon.org
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