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It is only a myth in as much as marijuana isn't the ONLY gateway drug.  But it certainly does serve as a gateway drug.  Gateway drugs have less to do with the drug itself and more to do with access.  Marijuana is a gateway drug because it is fairly easy for a young person to get.  All experimentation starts with drugs that are easy to get.  Inhalants and Rx are also gateway drugs, because a kid can get them right in their house without paying anybody for them.  These are particularily scary gateway drugs in that the first use can kill or cause serious brain damage.   

I'm still not sure what a gateway drug is. Do you mean a gateway drug is a drug that is easy to get? Could you please give a definition that I can apply that proves marijuana is a gateway drug but sugar isn't?

That article doesn't actually declare that consumption won't go up.  It basically says, "we don't know", which isn't exactly no.  It also doesn't address the fact that a price drop is certainly going to increase access to minors.  It also doesn't address the fact that legalizing would invariably lead to more adults having marijuana in the home which will also increase access to youth. 

I was very careful with my wording. There is no evidence it will go up. Many teenagers report that pot is easier to get than alcohol, so one could argue that availability will go down. There is no real evidence either way, except that past experience in the Netherlands has shown that usage or availability won't change much (for minors at least).

And given the marketing and advertising culture in America, do you think that would really happen?  Tobacco and Alcohol companies still find very clever ways to market to youth, despite regulations.  You put up a hurdle, they find a way around it.  And they are pretty good at that too. 

But it's no longer very effective is it? It all pales in comparison to the current Hollywood marketing of pot, which won't change much.

How do you come to that figure?  Surveys I see show that it is far less than 100% of kids who think marijuana is easy to get.  So while it certainly is accessible, it is incorrect to say availability is at 100%. 

That same article:

Meanwhile, according to national surveys, high school students continue to report that marijuana is universally available, purity has increased and prices have fallen.

I remember when I was 16. It was hard to find pot, in fact I don't think I managed even once (sometimes friends had some, but I never had any for myself). It was way easier to get alcohol at 16. I doubt there are many children in the US who want pot, but can't get it.

I don't agree with the notion that the merits of the legalization debate of marijuana have to be measure against alcohol.  I always see that as a bit of obfuscation and basically a smoke screen.  (pun unintended).  Yes, certainly, alcohol is pretty damaging to youth and families, but I don't see how that means we should go ahead and legalize another substance, just because it seems to be less harmful.  It still is not harmless. 

What I meant is that the law is ridiculous, and many of the same consequences that were seen when booze was illegal are seen today with pot. Do you think alcohol should be made illegal? Why not? Those are probably the same reasons I think pot should be legal.

Thats putting the cart before the horse.  Kids don't move on to harder drugs just because the drug dealer has them.  They move on to harder drugs as they develop a tolerance and they don't get the same kick they were getting.  This is especially pronounced with kids who are self-medicating and using drugs to escape from some real or perceived negative in their life.  That the dealer has those harder drugs certainly greases the wheels, but it is not the primary influence behind that pattern of behavior. 

I wasn't claiming that. But pot being legal would create another barrier between wanting something harder and getting something harder. I know people that want MDMA and can't get it, and thus don't use it. These people have never learned how to buy illegal drugs.

It wouldn't stop those who really want it, but nothing will.

Yes, I disagree with that definition and I explained in my previous post the more accurate definition of gateway drug.  

I'm sorry, could you please restate it? The closest I could find was:

Gateway drugs have less to do with the drug itself and more to do with access.

In your posts you seem to assume that legalizing pot will increase usage, or perhaps even availability. There is no evidence that usage will go up, see: http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/07/prop-19-analysis-will-marijuana-legalization-increase use/

That article mentions that in the Netherlands usage did go up a little in the start, but that this was probably due to marketing. This is why I think there should be rules against marketing, like the Netherlands has now implemented.

And availability, at least for high school age kids, is already near 100%. It can't go up much more.


The thing that really bugs me is that alcohol is more harmful in every way I know of than pot. Why don't we make pot legal and alcohol illegal? Oh yeah, because making alcohol illegal causes violent gangs to form, makes treatment harder, and loses taxes to the state. I forgot.

There's also the gateway drug effect.  because weed is illegal if you know someone that sells weed you probably know someone that sells something else, if the weed dealer doesn't he knows someone that does.  Also once you start smoking weed you've passed the psychological barrier of "doing an illegal drug" and any other illegal drug is much easier to decide to experiment with.

While I agree with most of your post, I'd like to add that the "gateway drug" effect has been largely debunked in study after study. It's one of those correlation does not equal causation things; while people who are going to use hard drugs will generally use cannabis as well, most cannabis users seem to have no interest in using hard drugs.

I don't think Jude was talking about the traditional "I tried pot, now I might as well try cocaine" effect, but more the accessibility effect. If you smoke illegal drugs you know where you can get illegal drugs. Many times people that will sell you pot will also sell you MDMA, or will know where you can get MDMA. If you legalize drugs, and license the sellers, and make them lose their licence without warnng if they discuss harder drugs, it becomes harder to find these things.

It is only a myth in as much as marijuana isn't the ONLY gateway drug.  But it certainly does serve as a gateway drug.  Gateway drugs have less to do with the drug itself and more to do with access.  Marijuana is a gateway drug because it is fairly easy for a young person to get.  All experimentation starts with drugs that are easy to get.  Inhalants and Rx are also gateway drugs, because a kid can get them right in their house without paying anybody for them.  These are particularily scary gateway drugs in that the first use can kill or cause serious brain damage.

What the article said was that marijuana is not a gateway drug:

There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs.

Do you not trust the article or do you not agree with their definition of gateway drugs?

There is a kind of social gateway drug effect, of course. But like I've argued before, the best way to change pot culture is to legalize pot. That way you get a bigger gap between pot and other drugs.

In the states, drinking age is usually 21.

In the Netherlands it isn't :P.

Also, good idea Roger. Now we are actually discussing something, instead of firing off opinions about pot and disagreeing.

Who thinks pot is probably a bad idea?  Pot can be a bad idea. Just like alcohol, or bungee jumping.

Who thinks pot should be legal under the same conditions as alcohol? Almost: I'd add the no advertising clause that tobacco has. Also, Alcohol and Weed should not be sold from the same places, and probably shouldn't be consumed at the same public places. Split up the weed cafes and bars.

To be clear: I think that pot should be legal for anyone who can get himself blown up for his country (18+) because:

Keeping it illegal costs a lot of money, and making it legal could raise tax money. The cost of treatment won't go up much, because experience has shown usage wont go up much.

The government telling me I can't inhale certain things is bullshit.

Making something legal does not equal sending an approving message, and even if it did:

The Government sending a prodrug message wont make much of a difference, Hollywood and the music industry have been sending that message for years, and they are way more influential.

Making pot legal might create more respect for the people that solve murders. I'm not an anarchist, and I think the police does a lot of stuff I agree needs to be done. But for now: fuck the police.

(I can't understand anyone not agreeing with anything I say below this point, and if you do I'd love to understand)

I think pot is less bad for people than alcohol is.

I think that there should be as many treatment facilities as needed, and that there will be fewer facilities needed than for alcohol.

I think making it illegal causes more harm than good. Especially if you include the violence in Mexico. Even more so if you don't consider young black people, in prison for drug charges, used as slave labor to be an advantage.

Some people really enjoy pot.

I just got a letter from NET. It is awesome and yellow and includes stickers.

I will send another letter back shortly.

Please allow me to restate the question:  I understand that your data supports the government's position on Marijuana.  However, if it did not, and you reported your findings, do you believe that you would lose your funding across the board, regardless of the other substances still being reported as dangerous/undesireable, not because of necessity, but rather to get you out of the way?

Is that even necessary? If people showing that something isn't a problem get their funding cut off, then obviously reports indicating problems will be published more. You don't even have to assume malice.

And when you look for malice it's real easy to find. From way back when it was first made illegal: there was a study where they had monkeys breathe nothing but smoke for several minutes, and they found brain damage afterwards (this study was cited at least into the nineties by federally funded programmed); to right now: The Drug czar's job is to prevent legalization

I'm not saying all federally funded studies are bullshit, I'm just saying the government doesn't have a good track record and we should be very wary of bias.

Abortion and gays marriage are issues that he's conservative on.

I just assumed this was about the abortion boats that hang around in international waters near countries that don't allow abortion...

The problem with these threads is that people tend to forget what they are arguing. RWHN seems to be arguing that marijuana can cause real harm to families and especially to children, and NET seems to be arguing that the laws forbidding marijuana are ridiculous and not based on scientific evidence. Both of which I agree with.

(I'm just arguing that everything is better where I'm from  )

I LOVE GARLIC

Or even better, watch proper American shows!

Just finished The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe.

These side effects are of criminalization, really. I live in the Netherlands, and most young people here don't use weed. One of the reasons is the kind of drug users we see: there are few artist glamorizing weed, and most of the people you see in coffeeshops are old. Housewives in their fifties. Working class men in paint speckled uniforms. Most of them are  friendly and interesting people, but they're not the kind of thing young people aspire to.

I'm not following.  How can you ascribe the side effects I mentioned to criminalization as opposed to the introduction of medical marijuana?  It isn't the criminalization that makes kids think marijuana is now more acceptable.  It is the fact that doctors are now prescribing it that kids think this.  This has nothing to do with the criminalization of the substance. 

You talked about social problems, mainly about minors getting weed. I responded why you don't see these problems as much in the Netherlands.

Such as medical marijuana being diverted to non-prescribed users, including minors. 

Coffeeshops check exactly who gets entry, and the low profits people get from selling these days means that minors getting weed is about the same level of being a problem as minors getting alcohol is. When I was seventeen I couldn't get weed, because I couldn't get into the coffeeshops. Remember: the Netherlands has a lower rate of use.

Even where there is medical marijuana in the states there is still a large amount of illegal selling, because there are still adults that buy there weed from there. High school kids don't have enough money to support someones drug-dealer lifestyle, especially if weed gets cheaper (because it's available legally).

AND, the message it (intentionally or unintentionally) to youth which is that it is okay to use because it is prescribed.  (even though it hasn't been prescribed to them.) 

And the message in the Netherlands sends is that weed isn't good (we get a lot of anti-drug propaganda at the schools), and that smoking weed isn't cool (which is almost impossible to send about something that you only really hear about celebrities and rebel kids using).

I guess I didn't really make my point clear earlier.

I've seen people addicted to both and from the perspective of addiction, it seemed pretty comparable to me. Both were in a bad spot in life, filled it up with an addiction and wasted away a year of their life and studies. Then, maybe I've never seen a "heavy" pot addict.

I agree with you, I just want to add: You live in Europe, so a lot of the people that think they are addicted to weed are (also) addicted to the tobacco they put in their joints.

 

At least it wasn't Rick Astley.

I prefer Rick Astley.