I would contend that it is not reliably known to be a gateway drug. http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1360-0443.2002.00280.x;jsessionid=opclFahk62oaWQPkqx?cookieSet=1&journalCode=add

Shows a paper concluding “our results demonstrate that the phenomena used to motivate belief in such an effect are consistent with an alternative simple, plausible common-factor model. No gateway effect is required to explain them.”

http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/94/5/836
“Results. With the exception of higher drug use in San Francisco, we found strong similarities across both cities. We found no evidence to support claims that criminalization reduces use or that decriminalization increases use.

Conclusions. Drug policies may have less impact on cannabis use than is currently thought.”

And see for more:
http://www.drugscience.org/sfu/sfu_gateway.htm

While I agree that drug ABUSE is something that we, as a individual members of our society, should provide education and rehabilitative support for, I would argue taht having the government directly involved in the matter is of no use, and may, in fact, be more harmful to the cause.

Private and charitable organizations tend to be far more capable and successful at treating drug abuse than the government ever has been with prohibition laws.

I appreciate and greatly sympathize with your position, Chris, but you seem, to me, to be an example of why government involvement in prohibition is a failure. You were still pulled to the allure of drugs and fell to the consquences of drug abuse and addiction despite the government’s ban on the very substances you became addicted to. It is those factors of abuse and addiction that we need to address in order to facilitate helping our fellow human beings, not making the drugs illegal since that has never proven to be useful.

She is a Montessori teacher, minoring in three subjects at a small college in Virginia. She wants to begin teaching drama in a Montessori setting. Her dream is to introduce children to drama as a way of connecting with each other, and with society as a whole. She wants to contribute to society by strengthening it at a local level, by building up it’s newest members.

Up yours, Bill.

I am one of the 5 percent who recover for more than two years. I have abstained from drug (and alcohol) use for almost 19 years now. Abstention has become a habit; I no longer really crave mind-altering substances, or only rarely, usually under duress. I relapsed once, for about a week, a few months after I completed treatment (30-day inhouse). I do not believe that I have another recovery in me, so a second relapse is simply out of the question.

I started using marijuana, now reliably known to be a gateway drug, just as critics have been contending for years. It certainly was for me. The perceived need to alter reality is the real problem of drug use. Once you get a taste of mind-altering substances and like the effects, it is natural and almost inevitable to begin trying different ones.

I progressed from pot to hash to uppers to psychedelics to coke. I finally bottomed out on coke, just about the time that crack was coming into widespread use in suburban areas. Fortunately I went into treatment after only two marathon crack sessions.

I went into treatment to avoid losing my wife and my son. I stayed in treatment for myself, because you can’t do it for anybody else but yourself. We were told that out of a group of twenty, two people would stay clean for one year. I am one of those people. I do not know who the other one was.

The point of this lengthy introduction is to agree with Rick. We have enough legal substances that cause harm. These substances have been with us for centuries. The decisions to allow them into society openly have already been made. What we must ask ourselves is this: What benefit will mankind obtain from expanding this pantheon? What costs will be incurred for the perceived benefit?

I already know what the price is for a little recreation. Approximately two percent of the population are latent addicts, just waiting to get into the vicious circle of using. That’s 5.6 million people in this country. Who wants to give them carte blanche to begin to destroy themselves and their families, friends and loved ones? Do we really want to encourage that many people to engage in behavior that can be so detrimental to them? Do we?

http://www.mcwilliams.com/books/books/aint/toc.htm

Definitely worth a read and nicely covers the arguments, I think.

But what about the not so worthless stoners like Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman? (OK, bad examples, they would be boring to hang out with because they are deceased.) The point is not all pot users are dead ringers for Spicoli and there is a difference between use and abuse.

Oh, and does the phrase “Just say NO!” ring a bell? Methinks the Drug War might have predated Slick Willie by ten years or so. Ronnie Raygun gets full credit for this ridiculous charade, of course Slick Willie is guilty of not stopping it, as are the Bushes (senior and junior).

While on the topic of the obvious: Criminalizing drug use does tend to increase the correspondance between criminality and drug use. I remain unsurprised by this.

Cheers,

Naked Ape

General11 Aug 2005 02:49 pm
Drugs

Lots of posts from lots of people on drugs, the drug war and if drugs are bad for you [...]

“The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) opposes criminal prohibition of drugs. Not only is prohibition a proven failure as a drug control strategy, but it subjects otherwise lawabiding citizens to arrest, prosecution and imprisonment for wha…

And I agree about who I’d rather be around.