Why do people act like it's harmless?

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In a perfect world that would be true, but it's not a perfect world, and people are going to experiment. If they experiment and it were up to me, I'd much rather have kids experiment with marijuana than heroin/coke/etc.

Can I say "Duh" here?If it really was so "duh" to everybody, this thread wouldn't be here in the first place.

_People can and do START on heroine or some other such drug without ever having done pot._
Some perhaps, but in general, I think that's BS. Pot is probably the first easily accessible drug aside from glue and other shit like that. Most poeple are not going to just jump into more hardcore drugs. Those who never got into smoking are probably not going to just try meth or heroin, etc.. Those who like getting high off pot, are probably more willing to try "other" highs. I'm not saying they will but the probability has to be higher than a non-user.

I fall into the "some" category. The first drug I ever tried was LSD.....then multiple pills and exstasy. In my head, I always thought I don't smoke cigarettes, why would I ever do a drug that I had to smoke?Maybe if I tried pot first I would have been too tired to try anything else. (I'm just joking!)

The wording came out all wrong..Anyways.. It's my opinion that some may jump right into harder stuff, but I believe many will start with pot and then be more tempted to "try" other stuff. If they are smart and don't, then that's great.

Again, the people you describe are already open to the idea of doing drugs.Just because most of them start with weed doesn't mean anything. Every one of these people could just have well started with crack.

"That finding comes on the heels of a government report that linked pot use to psychiatric problems, including depression..." that was found to be a load of bullshit. It was a government report that was worded to support the government's own policies and was criticized worldwide for being distastefully biased.As for the story, it fails to note significant limitations of this study. First, the authors did not control for use of other drugs. While those with diagnosable dependence on other drugs were excluded, occasional or regular users of cocaine, MDMA, heroin, etc., were not. This could well have confounded the results.Second, although the putative mechanism for increased heart risk involves triglyceride levels, the marijuana users in the study did NOT have significantly elevated triglyceride levels.It's also worth noting that there remains no data showing that marijuana users actually have higher rates or heart disease, or increased mortality from any cause. This has been noted by such prestigious organizations as the Institute of Medicine and the British government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.This is a nearly meaningless study, and the reporting of it has been careless at best.

Of course it isn't completely harmless! IT'S SMOKE for god's sakes, and any smoke will have effects on the lungs. I also know what you mean by those idiots who just get crappy grades because of it... But, you cannot blame stuff on the plant, afterall it's ONLY a plant. I blame the people that decide to act like idiots instead of trying to blame your problems on something that was intended to be on this earth for some reason.

Vaporizers are the answer to those worried about the smoke. But if you've ever seen the movie "Super High Me", the main character has been smoking for decades and his lungs show absolutely no signs of damage. Bongs and bubblers are also decent at cleaning out some of the more nasty stuff in the smoke. I have friends that smoke all day and deal and all that and have amazing grades.I don't think you can blame the plant on the laziness, I think it's just those people's personalities to sit around all day doing nothing, the marijuana just helps pass the time.

smoking pot is harmless, except for the smoke part but if it worries you, you can always use a volcano vaporizer or make some yummy cookies and then it really is harmless.

When I have some time, I will return! This is going to be a fun thread.That gateway bullshit was blown out of the water long ago.Its a leftover from the Regan era and just say no Nancy.I lack time to get in to this today, guess I should of stopped by an hour ago when I got home so I could get in to this, but I did not.BTW, Iv done it all, outside of meth, it got popular after I got my head out of my ass, or I would have. know the only one I still do, and after over 25 fucking years of doing it? POT.Now I am not claiming everyone that starts on drugs starts on black tar, but the gateway myth is just a myth.Never has pot been linked to cancer and has been in fact proven to block certain types of head and neck cancer, is VERY helpful in countering the effects of pain, and nausea and the bullshit associated with chemo. Fuck I need more time!I will get in to this tuesday or wendsday when I have the time, too much to get in to to do it in the time I have left at home today.

Lets see.. Last time I posted in this thread was 2 years ago..My opinion still stands and I really don't give a shit whethter you claim it's a myth or not.

Originally Posted By: sdp

Lets see.. Last time I posted in this thread was 2 years ago..

My opinion still stands and I really don't give a shit whethter you claim it's a myth or not.

Pot itself is harmless, burning it and inhaling it is bad for your lungs though but probably not any worse than if you were a non-smoker living in an urban area filled with pollution.

Everyone should be forced to smoke multiple bong hits of pot at age 16 and then make a decision if they want to do it or not just to prevent them from becoming self-righteous, "straight-edge" dickheads.

Awwwwws, did I hurt your feelings?
I got SOME time now, but not enough, but fuck it, lets get shit started.

I knew it was an old thread, I can read dates, even if most people can not. But since it was brought back up, and is still a valid point, and you still have yet to realize your wrong, its worth going over yet again.
shall we? Lets...

there is no drug that will magically give you a craving for other drugs you have never had. That is a belief in witchcraft, not science.

Hemp was George Washington's primary crop, and a secondary crop for Thomas Jefferson, so hemp has been around in America for a long time, without apparently causing much destruction in society. Each sailing ship carried several tons of hemp in its rope and sails, so cultivation of hemp was a major industry. Even though cannabis was widely grown, there were no allegations that it led to harder drugs.

In 1910, they believed that the certain steppingstone to opiate addiction was "eating Mexicanized food". The fundamental idea comes from America's puritanical history. It is the idea that pleasure is sinful, and small pleasures lead to cravings for larger pleasures. In this example, those who crave spicy food will inevitably crave larger pleasures, such as opium.

In the 1920s, some states outlawed marijuana because of the belief that heroin addiction would lead to the use of marijuana - just the opposite of the modern myth.

Cannabis had been widely known and used in many medicinal compounds for hundreds of years, so there was ample evidence in the 1930s to know whether there was a connection between marijuana and harder drugs.

In 1937, Harry Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and the greatest proponent to prohibition, but for money reasons and racism, not for any valid facts, testified before Congress that there was no connection at all between marijuana and heroin. In the testimony for the Marihuana Tax Act he said:

ANSLINGER: This drug is not being used by those who have been using heroin and morphine. It is being used by a different class, by a mostly younger group of people. The age of the morphine and heroin addict is increasing all the time, whereas the marihuana smoker is quite young.

MR. DINGELL: I am just wondering whether the marihuana addict graduates into a heroin, an opium, or a cocaine user.

MR. ANSLINGER: No, sir; I have not heard of a case of that kind. I think it is an entirely different class. The marihuana addict does not go in that direction.

MR. DINGELL: And the hardened narcotic user does not fall back on marihuana.

MR. ANSLINGER: No, sir: he would not touch that.

The reason marijuana had to be outlawed, he said, was because it caused insanity, criminality, and death.

This from a guy that is willing to do and say anythign to make it illegal an save himself (timber industry) from being put out of business by a plant that grows fast, is stronger than wood, and better than wood, not to mention 100% renewable in the course of a year vs 20 years for timber.

Now keep in mind, that when the gateway myth was set up, it was directed at heroine and opiates., the rest of the shit did not exist, or atleast in no great quanity.

In 1970, the Canadian Government did their largest study ever of the subject, and found no connection between marijuana and heroin.

In 1972, the US Government did their largest study ever of the subject, and found no connection between marijuana and heroin. This was also the conclusion of the largest study ever done by Consumers Union, published the same year.

Every major study of the marijuana laws in the last 100 years has concluded that the only connection between marijuana and heroin is that they are both prohibited and, therefore, sold in the same black market.

The most recent study of the subject was the report of the US Institute of Medicine on medical marijuana. They reported:

Instead it is the legal status of marijuana that makes it a gateway drug.

In other words, the people who support prohibition are using the bad effects of prohibition as justification for prohibition. The conclusion of all the research is that we have a "gateway drug policy". It is the laws that create the problem.

If it needs to be spelled out for you, It is a gateway drug because its illegal. the people that sell it, sell other shit, they make more money on other shit, alot more money, and as the other shit is addictive, its good to get you started on it when you buy weed from the same asshole that sells the bad shit.
This is the only connection to a gateway drug that exists.

Now lets take the other shit shall we? the shit outside of those drugs that scared them early on, teh same fucking drugs that were once sold in jc penny catalog for head ache cures and medicine.

The primary basis for this "gateway hypothesis" is a recent report by the center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA), claiming that marijuana users are 85 times more likely than non-marijuana users to try cocaine. This figure, using data from NIDA's 1991 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, is close to being meaningless. It was calculated by dividing the proportion of marijuana users who have ever used cocaine (17%) by the proportion of cocaine users who have never used marijuana (.2%). The high risk-factor obtained is a product not of the fact that so many marijuana users use cocaine but that so many cocaine users used marijuana previously.

It is hardly a revelation that people who use one of the least popular drugs are likely to use the more popular ones -- not only marijuana, but also alcohol and tobacco cigarettes. The obvious statistic not publicized by CASA is that most marijuana users -- 83 percent -- never use cocaine. Indeed, for the nearly 70 million Americans who have tried marijuana, it is clearly a "terminus" rather than a "gateway" drug.

During the last few years, after a decade of decline, there has been a slight increase in marijuana use, particularly among youth. In 1994, 38 percent of high school seniors reported having ever tried the drug, compared to about 35 percent in 1993 and 33 percent in 1992. This increase does not constitute a crisis. No one knows whether marijuana use-rates will continue to rise. But even if they do, it will not necessarily lead to increased use of cocaine.

Since the 1970s, when NIDA first began gathering data, rates of marijuana and cocaine use have displayed divergent patterns. Marijuana prevalence increased throughout the 1970s, peaking in 1979, when about 60 percent of high school seniors reported having used it at least once. During the 1980s, cocaine use increased while marijuana use was declining. Since 1991, when data for the CASA analysis were gathered, marijuana use-rates have increased while cocaine use-rates have remained fairly steady.

The over-changing nature of the statistical relationship between use-rate for marijuana and cocaine indicates the absence of a causal link between the use of these two drugs. Therefore, even if the proposed Partnership campaign were to be effective in reducing marijuana use it would not guarantee a proportional reduction in the number of people who use cocaine. To the extent anti-drug campaigns are effective, they seem to be most effective in deterring those people who would have been fairly low-level users. There is no reason to believe that anti-marijuana messages of any sort would deter many of those marijuana users -- currently 17 percent of the total -- who also develop an interest in cocaine.

Nor is there reason to believe that the Partnership's new campaign will actually reduce the overall number of marijuana users. For a decade now, American youth have been subjected to an unparalleled assault of anti-drug messages. They have seen hundreds of Partnership advertisements, on television and in the print media. They have been urged to "just say no" by rock stars, sports heroes, presidents and first-ladies. They have been exposed to anti-drug educational programs in the schools. Yet this is the same generation of young people that recently began increasing its use of marijuana. It seems unlikely that many of them will be deterred by hyperbolic claims of marijuana's gateway effect, particularly when it contradicts the reality of drug use they see around them.
In the United States, the claim that marijuana acts as a gateway to the use of other drugs serves mainly as a rhetorical tool for frightening Americans into believing that winning the war against heroin and cocaine requires waging a battle against the casual use of marijuana. Not only is the claim intellectually indefensible, but the battle is wasteful of resources and fated to failure.

Your opinion is just that, your opinion, and opinions are like assholes, every body has one, and they are all full of shit.

My opinion, is no better or worse than yours, however mine is based on facts and science and numbers and history, not on propaganda spoon fed to me by the powers that be.

very good, very right, but one problem.even people who have used it for years and who did not smoke anything but pot, even in heavy users, do not have decreased lung function.Its not the smoke, the lack of oxygen can not be good for you, Ill admit to that. but unlike tobacco and other shit, when marijuana is burned it does not give off radiation.That lack of radioactive decay is what is currently believed to be the factor that makes pot smoke harmless (small doses only, obviously enough of it all at once with no oxygen will kill you, but that is asphyxiation, not death from pot, exactly the same thing that happened in the gov studies that said pot causes lung cancer and brain damage)pot is less damaging to your lungs than the air pollution from cars and factories in any urban area.Your on the right track, you just have no carried out your search for credible studies far enough to find all that I have in the 25 years or so that Iv been smoking pot.By the time I was 16, noone had to force me to take bong hits, I was the fucker with the bong, or a joint or an apple, hiding in the garage at a party, sucking down a bowl or 4 with my friends and not sharing with the rest of the people at the party.

I didn't read much of your post except for the beginning and end.

I never read ANY "propganda" or "studies". My opinion is still my own and not based on any studies.

I wonder how many people who have never taken drugs go straight to meth, cocaine, crack, heroin.. whatever...

If you ask people who do use harder drugs and or are addicted to hard drugs, what they started out with.. what do you think the answer will be? I don't have any hard facts... But I think I know what the answer would be though.

A Myth? Perhaps but I still say BS.

I can see that it all comes to what type of attitude and behavior the person already has before and after taking drugs that leads them into a spiral downwards. I smoke pot and would never dream of doing any hard drugs or obsess over it, and you'd think a depressed person like me will drown my emotions with it. Pot to me is like video games, and I've been doing less of BOTH because I'm studying more. I have always seen pot as just a "thing to do" and so that's how I treat it. Indulge, sober up, go on with life. Pot has even brought me closer to my family (was a bit awkward at first) and helped me open up my emotions towards others, but I'm not going to treat it like an anti depressant and blaze every morning. I plan on doing that when i retire, I'd say I fucking earn that spliff

I can't agree, Chance. Any organic material when burnt is going to produce carcinogens such as the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Some types of smoke are probably less carcinogenic than others but I don't believe any would be free from it. I can't see radiation as a major factor.

Smokeless methods are much safer. The main issue then is the possibility of cannabis-induced schizophrenia with heavy long-term usage, but who is susceptible to this is not well understood.

Life is what you make it. Weed isn't harmful. I wouldn't say any drug is harmful... unless in the wrong hands.