The “gateway drug” thing was a lie in 1985 and its a lie now.
Comment on The way my daughter's middle school health class classifies drugs is insane.
ashok36@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Marijuana is not a gateway drug.
Having to deal with a drug dealer that wants to also sell you actually addictive drugs is the gateway.
Legalize pot, sell it at the grocery store, and you will watch the number of addicts in general fall precipitously. I guarantee it.
funkyfarmington@lemmy.world 1 month ago
HelixDab2@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Having to deal with a drug dealer that wants to also sell you actually addictive drugs
Clearly marijuana has some serious kind of habituation, and it’s equally clear that many people that use marijuana are problem users. Addictive? No, not by any strict definition of addiction, since you won’t suffer serious adverse effects if you stop. OTOH, I’ve known at least as many problem marijuana users as problem drinkers
ashok36@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The question isn’t whether Marijuana is habit forming. Obviously for some percentage it is. The question is whether Marijuana use in and of itself encourages or preface additional drug use. My position is that it does not and by legalizing Marijuana we would find that it is the interaction with black market drug dealers which correlates instead.
HelixDab2@lemm.ee 1 month ago
The question is whether Marijuana use in and of itself encourages or preface additional drug use.
I would argue that in many ways it does. Marijuana is–or was–illegal. Alcohol is legal, but age restricted. If you are willing to use a substance that is (was) entirely illegal, you are more likely going to be willing to try other drugs that are legitimately addictive, because you’ve already crossed one of the major hurdles. If alcohol had been illegal for the same amount of time that marijuana had been, then I would agree that alcohol was likely a gateway drug as well.
I’m in favor of de-scheduling marijuana entirely. But I think that it’s disingenuous for people to act as though there weren’t serious problems with chronic and underage marijuana use.
HopingForBetter@lemmy.today 1 month ago
After a quick search through us history, alcohol was banned around a decade before marijuana and lasted for about 13 years. The marijuana ban that we all know of happened, get this, in 1970, and states began pushing back only 3 years after. So, alcohol was banned far longer than marijuana. The d.a.r.e. campaigns and other propoganda coupled with the inability to do scientific studies on the drug created the mass panic. There were not serious problems, other than some politician needing a platform.
IzzyScissor@lemmy.world 1 month ago
You’re saying that it has nothing to do with marijuana itself that make it a gateway drug, only that we’ve made it illegal.
That means anything we make illegal is a ‘gateway X’.
Dasus@lemmy.world 1 month ago
If you are willing to use a substance that is (was) entirely illegal, you are more likely going to be willing to try other drugs that are legitimately addictive, because you’ve already crossed one of the major hurdle
It’s honestly rather ludicrous to still see 60’s propaganda being parroted. You’re on the internet, dude. There’s no need for you to be that ignorant.
TK420@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I bet it’s a useful plant and that’s why people use it daily.
Oh, guess what, it’s time to take my meds, I’ll be back after a few bong hits before I go back to work.
chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
I buy THC drinks online from 3Chi. I haven’t had an urge to try anything harder (in fact, I’m a bit scared of anything that might affect my heart (aside from booze becaus3 we all do at least one very stupid thing), and the only thing I do want to try but only with a good support group around is shrooms).
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 month ago
I wonder what the stats in Canada look like now.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Weird how cigarettes and alcohol are not ‘gateway drugs.’
Carighan@lemmy.world 1 month ago
That’s because from a health perspective, alcohol in particular is an “end state drug”. It’s what you die with. It ruins you. Not as fast as heroine, but just as thoroughly.
Red_October@lemmy.world 1 month ago
So if I just occasionally have a beer with dinner does that mean I could also enjoy a bit of light recreational heroine for dessert?
littlebluespark@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The best dessert.
IzzyScissor@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Don’t forget shampoo!
My D.A.R.E. officer made sure we all knew that shampoo is a drug because it’s a chemical compound that physically affects our bodies. I definitely had fewer issues with drugs after learning that I was already a ‘drug user’.
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
I had fewer issues with drugs after doing drugs, having a great time, feeling better the next morning than if I’d had 4 pints of beer.
RGB3x3@lemmy.world 1 month ago
That’s actually a pretty good way to think about it though. Drugs are just chemical compounds and different compounds have different effects on the body.
Are you sure that D.A.R.E officer was not secretly cool?
IzzyScissor@lemmy.world 1 month ago
D.A.R.E. has been proven to increase drug use, so I don’t think it was just him. The entire ‘scare tactic’ just doesn’t work.
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 month ago
Yeah, I really wonder who writes these, and what their outlook on their job is. They have to know that the content has some pretty strong omissions or false inclusions there for political reasons.