The Real Dangers of Marijuana
June 4th, 2009 by Russ
This week, the Huffington Post carried a somewhat disjointed, but well-meaning editorial on the absurditites of calling marijuana ‘dangerous.’ While lumping it together with other more addictive and potentially harmful substances seems silly, calling it dangerous isn’t as ludicrous as you might think.
Yes, marijuana has never killed anyone from an overdose. Yes, the gateway to harder drugs arguments has proven to be unprovable. Yes, many people use the substance quietly, privately, and in peace. Yes, it’s arguably a substance that can regrow brain cells in addition to promoting well-being and curing a long list of ailments. But none of these facts speak to the real dangers of marijuana. Consider these facts:
- Marijuana can lead to unusual and unexpected tangents of thought.
- It can cause unsafe levels of inspiration.
- It has caused hundreds of thousands of people to question authority.
- It has lead to a veritable exodus of enlightened souls from under the thumbs of their corporate overlords.
- It can cause sudden consumption of an entire book, or of an otherwise unintelligible movie (Pink Floyd’s The Wall?).
- It can instantly turn a mild-mannered person into a ravager of kitchen cupboards.
- It causes people to re-examine things that they have taken for granted.
- It causes sudden bouts of laughter.
- Marijuana can indiscriminately kill — boredom.
So take heed, and tell your friends. Some minds out there still remain perilously un-expanded.
Doing Away with “Gateway” Semantics
June 3rd, 2009 by Russ
Anti-weed advocates are slowly being painted into a corner. Realizing that the good old modes of propaganda and fear mongering aren’t fooling teenagers anymore, crusaders are turning to circular logic in an attempt to confuse and disorient those still on the fence. Gateway Theory is an old standard, along these lines. If smoking pot makes you more likely to shoot pure anthrax into your left ventricle, then clearly it should be kept illegal, right?
This week, DRC.net’s Scott Morgan made a very compelling scientific case against any possible causality between smoking weed and trying harder drugs. He cites several studies, including a University of Pittsburgh paper that concluded:
…the likelihood that someone will transition to the use of illegal drugs is determined not by the preceding use of a particular drug but instead by the user’s individual tendencies and environmental circumstances.
While it appears that science comes down decisively against the side of Gatewayers, common sense does so even more powerfully. Think for a moment about the insanity that would be unleashed upon us if our Congress regularly decided to ban innocuous things that could potentially lead to illegal behavior later on.
- Bandannas and colored shirts lead to gang associations.
- Water gun fights seem a clear gateway to indiscriminate shootings.
- Unemployment would be made illegal for fear it would turn honest men into grifters and thieves.
- Cellphones and pagers are critical to drug dealing, so clearly they are gateway products.
- Computers and the Internet are responsible for the appearance of countless pedophiles, rapists, and other undesirables.
Clearly they would all have to go.
No lawmaker could ever productively act using Gateway Theory. We humans are pretty lousy at predicting causality. If we begin to ban things that could lead to harm, we’ll ban ourselves right out of existence.
Study Confirms Marijuana is No Gateway Drug
December 5th, 2006 by Alex
Books like this belong in a landfill.
A complex study has just been wrapped up at the University of Pittsburgh. Researchers gathered 12 years worth of data on 214 boys, all of whom eventually used some type of drug (legal or illegal). Ranging from ages 10-12 all the way until age 22, you can imagine the wealth of information that was cultivated from this study.
The overall goal was to determine whether marijuana was a gateway drug and to also chart the patterns of different types of drug usage. The result? Marijuana is no more of a gateway drug than cigarettes or alcohol. The interesting thing is what’s called the ‘Gateway Sequence’ and ‘Reverse Sequence’. Meaning, boys who started out drinking or smoking cigarettes were just as likely to move on to marijuana and other drugs as boys who started with marijuana before anything else.
Here’s a quote from Ralph Tarter, Ph.D., lead author of the study:
The gateway progression may be the most common pattern, but it’s certainly not the only order of drug use. In fact, the reverse pattern is just as accurate for predicting who might be at risk for developing a drug dependence disorder.
The belief that marijuana is a gateway drug to much worse substances has been a corner-stone of governmental policy towards narcotics. Hopefully, the continuing amount of hard data that disproves politicians half-baked theories will start to alter the playing field.
So what is the most important deciding factor towards progression of drug use and what types of drugs are used? Your neighborhood. Your parents. Your peers. These are the real things that dictate who does drugs. If kids in the neighborhood smoke crack, there’s a higher chance you will too. If parents aren’t involved in a child’s early life, they’ll turn to other sources for comfort.
This all comes back to the broken windows theory. If the little problems are dealt with first, and a good environment is provided, non-recreational drugs will be avoided. People don’t just magically start smoking rock because it exists and now’s the time for society to address the base problems of usage instead of the assumed problems.
[via University of Pittsburgh - School of Pharmacology]
