The posts earlier today about marijuana as a gateway drug led to a number of passionate comments. Well, at the risk of causing offence I offer another thesis.
Marijuana is a gateway drug but it's a gateway drug because it's illegal. Legalize it and it won't be a gateway drug anymore.
Why?
Consider this -- is alcohol a gateway drug? Of course not; drinking does not lead to cocaine. And that's because the Beer Store does no up selling to crack.
In fairness, many marijuana dealers only sell dope but many sell a whole range of illegal drugs. The profit on other harder drugs is higher and the incentive is there to move other drugs.
If marijuana was legal there would be no incentive to sell other illegal drugs and, indeed, there would be every incentive to avoid the taint of illegality.
Does smoking dope, in itself, lead to a desire for other drugs? I doubt it but am prepared to listen to others. My sense is that any gateway effect is another manifestation of the crime tariff.
4 comments:
I can't speak in generalities here, only for myself.
I experimented with marijuana before I tried other (read: harder) recreational drugs. In my own experience I would say that marijuana does "open the gate" to other drugs.
Consider this: If an individual has grown accustomed to the D.A.R.E. dogma and (for whatever reason, peer pressure included) decides to experiment with marijuana, they could quickly realize that their brain is not an egg in a frying pan.
I myself came to a realization much like that. The fear of imminent demise subsides and you realize you have been lied to.
Look, your entire post screams of your naievity in this regard. Trying to substitute a legal chemical for illegal ones heightens this fact...you pose a question most high-school debate teams have already fretted over.
If you stay in Ontario, your bubble wont burst ;)
But Davida, I think I'm in agreement -- maybe I am not clear enough. My point is if marijuana is legal nobody will feel using it makes it easier to move on to extasy, or whatever. But you are right about one thing -- I am often amazed at my own naivety.
There are some pretty false assumptions there, I know plenty of people for whom they clearly stay away from alcohol because it will end up in using hard drugs by the end of the night.
As a former drug user, drug use is not done on a linear path from one to another to another.
I would definitely say alcohol is a gateway drug. How many people who enjoy hard drugs have never been drunk, enjoy being drunk, set out to be drunk.
It would be a much more credible discussion led by people with real world experience with drugs and have come out on the other side.
I can tell you I've heard more stories in my sobriety from others who have been in my shoes who can very much argue with these rather academic assumptions made by people that have probably never have been in the presence of cocaine or crystal, let alone done it, or truly know the stories of those who have.
Consider this -- is alcohol a gateway drug? Of course not; drinking does not lead to cocaine.
Can you say that beer leads to wine, leads to Vodka? Of course not. Yet the SAQ sells all of the above.
Can you say that pot leads to cocaine? That a rather tenuous assertion.
While you may have dealers that sell coke and pot, I don’t know of anyone addicted to both or used one drug as a gateway to another.
I take a more liberal view and would like to see most drugs legalized – why should society dictate what high people partake in.
And for the record, I do NOT take any drugs and I’m allergic to cigarette smoke…
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