Silk Road forums

Discussion => Off topic => Topic started by: Kappacino on April 24, 2012, 03:13 am

Title: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: Kappacino on April 24, 2012, 03:13 am
We've all heard the old bullshit spiel about marijuana leading to harder drugs. What do you guys think?

Personally, I used to think this was 100% untrue. Now I think, not that the drug itself is a gateway, but that people that want to smoke weed, are more likely to do other drugs too, simply because of the type of person that they are and the fact that they are already looking to affect their consciousness. Just like someone who plays basketball is more likely to play other sports too than someone that plays none.

But even if marijuana was proven 100% to be a gateway to harder drugs, what's wrong with being a gateway to the land of fucking AWESOME?
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: cerealbox on April 24, 2012, 03:15 am
Here's the logic. I know most people aren't informed on how real logic works, but here it is anyway. it's an ad absurdum argument.

Most people tried milk before they tried heroin. Therefor drinking milk is a gateway drug to heroin and need to be banned.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: Kappacino on April 24, 2012, 03:24 am
Here's the logic. I know most people aren't informed on how real logic works, but here it is anyway. it's an ad absurdum argument.

Most people tried milk before they tried heroin. Therefor drinking milk is a gateway drug to heroin and need to be banned.

Well, I see what you mean, but I think there is an element of truth to the idea that people that do marijuana, are more likely to do other drugs. I think this is more to do with the person than the actual marijuana though.

It'd be like saying most people that like milk, will also probably want to try chocolate milk.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: divinechemicals on April 24, 2012, 03:26 am
I mean it's usually true that people that do other drugs have done marijuana first, but it's ridiculous to say that the marijuana causes that. My one friend actually tried ecstasy before becoming a huge stoner. So it changes from person to person.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: Kappacino on April 24, 2012, 03:30 am
I mean it's usually true that people that do other drugs have done marijuana first, but it's ridiculous to say that the marijuana causes that. My one friend actually tried ecstasy before becoming a huge stoner. So it changes from person to person.

Yes, I never understood the idea of blaming the actual drug. It's just some plant matter. They may as well say that thoughts are a gateway drug.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: w0k0 on April 24, 2012, 03:36 am
Here's the logic. I know most people aren't informed on how real logic works, but here it is anyway. it's an ad absurdum argument.

Most people tried milk before they tried heroin. Therefor drinking milk is a gateway drug to heroin and need to be banned.

Thank you!
Milk is *the* gateway drug. Milk leads to caffeine. Caffeine usually leads to alcohol. Alcohol leads to nicotine. Nicotine leads to marijuana. Marijuana leads to whatever.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: ArmTrax on April 24, 2012, 03:36 am
If there were a gateway drug, it would probably tobacco and/or alcohol. Teens and young adults who drink or smoke are much more likely try weed. People who do heroin, coke, pills, and the vast array of other 'hard' drugs are much more likely to have drank alcohol or smoked cigarettes and tried weed earlier in life.

The only real and obvious reason that marijuana could be considered a gateway drug is that in order for one to obtain it one is forced to enter into the 'black market' whereby they are introduced, eventually, to other substances.

It isn't the substance that is the gateway, it is the law.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: simplyanon on April 24, 2012, 03:57 am
Its a gateway to the amazing land of drugs that make you feel soooooooooooo much better than pot. Like how Im'a feel when I trip on kwiks 25i in a couple days.

Walking leads to bikes, bikes lead to cars, cars lead to kidnapping. Therefor, walking causes kidnapping. Everyone needs to cut their own legs off. :D
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: RickyRango on April 24, 2012, 04:12 am
Weed use correlates with using other drugs, but correlation does not prove causation by itself.  You need empirical evidence to prove causation, not just correlating statistics.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: Gary Oak on April 24, 2012, 04:14 am
Marijuana didn't cause me to do jackshit other than sit on my ass watching television and eating junk food. My own research, curiosity, and probably my ADHD lead to my experimentation with harder drugs. I do feel like most people got their start from smoking bud though, but come on...it's not like it's the weed's fault drugs are so wonderful, right? Besides, everyone and their grandma can score weed so it's probably just a factor of availability. I never got any connections to harder drugs until I smoked ganja with friends, otherwise I would have done LSD long before smoking tree.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: Kappacino on April 24, 2012, 04:21 am
Marijuana didn't cause me to do jackshit other than sit on my ass watching television and eating junk food. My own research, curiosity, and probably my ADHD lead to my experimentation with harder drugs. I do feel like most people got their start from smoking bud though, but come on...it's not like it's the weed's fault drugs are so wonderful, right? Besides, everyone and their grandma can score weed so it's probably just a factor of availability. I never got any connections to harder drugs until I smoked ganja with friends, otherwise I would have done LSD long before smoking tree.

Silk Road is my gateway drug. There's so much new stuff here that I'm trying that I didn't even know about before.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: starfishtunacats on April 24, 2012, 05:02 am
I'm going to go along with the OP on this one. Work experience, school, and life has led me to the idea that it's up to the person's emotional predispositions they may carry. Or to put it another way, how psychologically vulnerable is the person. Are they able to get their needs met in a healthy manner that they don't find themselves enveloped in drugs and drama? Some people are able to explore things without going any further.

Now some choose to further explore, but others choose to and can't stop there. Could they be more emotionally vulnerable?

Too much focus on the drug and not enough on the human being.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: LainOfTheWired1984 on April 24, 2012, 06:21 am
As I get older I start to concede that weed has some steep downsides for teens. I know I'm fine but many teenagers just aren't smart enough to balance weed with school; I know I didn't do so well with that lol.

Overall, weed is not a gateway drug in the sense that it INEVITABLY leads to more drug use, but it DOES desensitize one to further exploration, whether the individual choose to pursue good or bad.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: Holly on April 24, 2012, 06:30 am
The appealing aspects of the conscious alteration is buried deep within the human pstche.   We all get high on something.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: PriscillaMarie90 on April 24, 2012, 06:38 am
I  have never liked smoking weed. Weed was the first drug I tried, I hated it, yet I still went on to abuse prescription medication like vicodin and xanax and other drugs like crystal meth and heroin.

Tbh, I don't think anyone could have said it better than cerealbox did, weed is as much a gateway drug as milk is.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: element12 on April 24, 2012, 06:49 am
Alcohol is a fucking gateway drug.  I tried both alcohol and weed and I like being high but weed is very safe so I wasn't pushed to do anything else.  But being drunk was awesome, and I began to think maybe the highs from drugs outweigh the health risks and that's when I started doing harder stuff.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: Kappacino on April 24, 2012, 06:53 am
Alcohol is a fucking gateway drug.  I tried both alcohol and weed and I like being high but weed is very safe so I wasn't pushed to do anything else.  But being drunk was awesome, and I began to think maybe the highs from drugs outweigh the health risks and that's when I started doing harder stuff.

Exactly. There's nothing wrong with a gateway if it leads to incredible shit.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: redalloverthelandguyhere on April 25, 2012, 02:20 am
There are no gateway drugs.

There are people who might tend to abuse drugs and we might argue that making cannabis illegal creates the situation whereby users come into contact with other drugs.

We could also chat about tobacco and argue that was THE first drug tried by most schoolboys and girls.

Alcohol also is a powerful drug - it makes people on LSD seem ok really compared to someone drunk and crawling in their own vomit. A lot of people in jail are there via alcohol inspired moments of madness.

The only argument against drugs are mainly arguments impure drugs. That said there are many young people uneducated about the stuff they use. I think MDMA is a classic example of people using but knowing nothing about the drug, dosages and how often it can be used. Giving a pure drug to some uneducated spells trouble. Thankfully anyone who can work out Tor and Bitcoins is usually above an IQ of 78.

Everyday there are few people dying from alcohol abuse in my local hospitals. Nobody cries about banning booze booze. Most will say that we all know the dangers and we are adult enough to know the risks. Drugs ought to be treated the same way. We should be treated like adults and allowed a choice of drugs and venues in which we can use those drugs. The tax revenue would bring billions to every nation.

In the UK we would create thousands of jobs and tens of thousands of part time jobs if we legalized cannabis alone.

Making coke legal would see cocaine venues open up. My local would ban coke as it leads to innocent drinkers and poyheads being accosted by cokeheads on the atypical 20 min UK coke high followed by moodiness and a need to fight someone.

The main fear is that cannabis smokers will be more likely to use heroin. In a way its true as illegal drugs are now sold by all the gangsters and heroin is part of the landscape in many areas of the UK. Most heroin users may have smoked weed at one time but they also smoked tobacco, drank beer, took coffee and tea and maybe dipped into the mums Valium pills. Most heroin users do not smoke weed now. From what I have seen even those smoking heroin are wiped out after just a few tokes of good honest bud. Some stick with weed as it makes the H go further.

So as for the gateway idea - its all bollocks.

I smoked weed for over 30 years and could have bought heroin in the 80s when it was pure as hell and cheap as hell. You had dozens of dealers competing. It was like SR in a block of flats with vendors hanging out the windows shouting out the virtues of their wares. For a short while the vast amounts of heroin imported and the small pool of heroin users meant that dealers had to compete.

I look at the heroin deals here, cheaper than coke for Gods sake!

But I don't want the habit. I think I would love heroin. I use codeine by prescription so am familiar with that opiate buzz albeit in a very minor manner. So cannabis has not made me lower my guard. If I was rich I would not care about getting addicted to heroin. you could do fine on pure gear and be in good health. Sadly most of us are far from rich and we have no nice rehab clinic only the local drug unit.

Life is the gateway to drugs. Any intelligent person might get to thinking about how they can feel different. We thrive on feeling good. Its human nature to experiment with drugs and its a good thing also as we sometimes find great drugs that do a lot of good for people.

Who knows maybe the monkey ate mushrooms and began to become self aware.

Maybe human progress is linked to our curiosity over altered states of mind in which our 'reality' seems different or we can grasp the concept of other realities.

Abstract thinking has its place. Imagination is the mother of inspiration. Inspired people are often the ones who bring us forward and bring progress to a human race which is still crawling along looking for answers to the most basic of questions.

Who are we?

Were are we headed?

Has anyone got any rolling papers?  ;D
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: flicky42 on April 25, 2012, 02:51 am
Marijuana = gateway drug to the chill zone.


or to my fridge whichever comes first
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: l1llykins on April 25, 2012, 03:04 am
I think cannabis turned out to be one of the drugs that made me want to throw everything out, lol.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: ijumz on April 25, 2012, 05:44 am
As mentioned before, ALCOHOL is the gateway drug. The fucked up part is that it's deemed socially acceptable to the extent where most don't even consider it a drug. Like, "I'm an alcoholic, not a drug addict." Well alcohol is a drug so yes you are a drug addict haha. And alcohol is obviously more destructive to lives than weed.

For me, once I smoked weed, I eventually used it to give myself permission to do this drug, then that drug. It progressed from there but it doesn't have to for all people. I happen to have the biological/genetic/psychological/environmental/whatever predisposition for addiction while some people don't. Others can stop at a certain point in their drug use and be satisfied. Not the case for me. If there's a drug I haven't tried, I couldn't say no to it haha.

Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: mollysbf on April 25, 2012, 05:50 am
Like some others have said I think the main thing that makes it a gateway drug is the simple fact that you get introduced to that crowd and therefor get introduced and have access to harder drugs. It's not like I didn't know what coke or molly was but I definitely would have never felt comfortable asking someone if I could buy some coke from them unless I new for a FACT that they were a dealer and had sold to people I know. For some reason weed never had that huge factor to it, even though I didn't really hang out with anyone that smoked when I started. Plus the BIGGEST thing that made me want to do ALL THE DRUGS was the fact that after I tried weed I realized I had been lied to for 16 years about what it does to you so I wanted to see if people were lying about the harder stuff.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: Raven1318 on April 25, 2012, 05:57 am
It seems logical that using marijuana might make people more open minded to drug use, and I've been surprised at how often this is not the case. I know plenty of people who have a pretty negative view of drug use and insist that their use is different because "they only smoke pot". Even more astonishing are the people who love to get get drunk but still view people who use drugs other than alcohol as degenerates. You would think that using these drugs might make people more open minded, but we live in a strange world.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: simplyanon on April 25, 2012, 06:13 am
I like drugs.

:D

Alcohol is probably my most abused substance. How I haven't been hospitalized from AP is beyond me. If I have a particularly shitty day, I'll go through 1.5L+ of vodka. Then I usually wake up somewhere odd. (My neighbors porch. The bed of a pickup truck parked at a Home Depot. To name a couple.) But, fuck it. I just put some of Karas K up my nose and am feeling pretty amazing. :D
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: clixor on April 25, 2012, 01:31 pm
Just like to share this as it gives an excellent insight in personality type and drug use:

http://www.salon.com/2012/04/19/debunking_drug_personality_misconceptions/

“There is some evidence that the more ‘bad’ traits you have, the harder the drugs you’re going to use,” says Michigan State Department of Psychology professor Chris Hopwood. “So super, super-impulsive, sensation-seeking, neurotic people might be inclined to use something like heroin, for example, whereas if you’re a little bit less impulsive or have more anxiety about things maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe you would use other drugs but you would be too afraid to use heroin.”

But we don't have to be naive about MJ use, if you use MJ you're likely connected to people who have access to other stuff. If you don't use MJ, you don't have access to it. So while i think MJ itself doesn't lead to stepping stoning, social circumstances resulting from the MJ use might though.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: Horizons on April 25, 2012, 02:49 pm
Everyone here has raised many very valid points, many of which I agree with. But there is one very real way in which marijuana IS a gateway drug, and nicotine, alcohol, milk and caffeine are NOT.

Think of your typical street dealer. He sells weed, coke, crack, meth, maybe some speed and H. Out of all these drugs, weed is the most common, has the lightest high and is the safest. So if you're a teenager and want to try some drugs that aren't freely available in your grandpa's kitchen, you're going to this guy for the weed, and not the rest.

But the other stuff this dude is selling has a much higher profit margin and, because it's more addictive, also has a higher guarantee of your return service. It's in his best interest, therefore, to try and push you his other products every time you go buy your weed from him.

In this sense, weed is a gateway drug: gaining access to it also means becoming exposed to advertisement for other heavier drugs, so, all else being equal, a person who buys weed regularly has a higher chance of trying heavier drugs than one who doesn't.

But of course, this isn't an inherent characteristic of weed. If weed were legal and tobacco cigarettes were illegal, then tobacco would be the gateway drug, not weed.

That's why it's stupid to say weed is a gateway drug, even if it might be true. When the government and media say it, it's a completely circular argument. They're saying, "We made this illegal, and because we made it illegal it is now potentially bad for you. Since it's bad for you, we must keep it illegal." They don't realize that their inadequate "solution" to a problem is actually what's causing the problem, like a dog chasing its own tail and wondering how the bastard keeps getting away.
Title: Re: Marijuana = Gateway drug?
Post by: hedPhil on April 25, 2012, 03:40 pm
While we all would like to dismiss any and all arguments against cannabis usage, I have to admit that it was DEFINITELY a gateway drug for me. Alcohol is just a simple stupid stoning drug - I never would have learned that "altered mental states" were worthwhile without cannabis.

The stuff showed me creativity and breadth of thought an emotion that I never knew was possible. Once I knew that, the rabbithole beckoned. I LOVE cannabis and it has brought me so many health and lifestyle benefits, but without it I never would have tried psilocybin or LSD.

So yes, it was a gateway drug for me and for many others. But thats not necessarily a bad thing. I am eternally grateful for the path it lead me down.