Yeah, again on the "Marijuana is NOT A GATEWAY DRUG" train...

Let me explain it a different way.

If you take the population of people who have done, or are into much more dangerous drugs...meth, heroine, cocaine, LSD, whatever...yeah, many of those people have, or do smoke pot. Drugs are a significant part of their life, so using a less powerful, much less dangerous drug is really no big deal - and they probably know a bunch of places to get it for a good price.

This is where the idea of "gateway drug" comes in.
People who buy into the gateway drug fallacy think "Oh, since all of these hardcore drug addicts have smoked pot...then, ::switch it around::...people who smoke pot will become hardcore drug addicts!"

It doesn't work like that, you can't just reverse the chain of events and make a theory out of it. The fact is, the vast majority of people who smoke pot do NOT use super dangerous drugs like meth, heroine, cocaine, or LSD. There are ton of barriers here preventing people from doing that. 1) Mental barrier: People know pot is much less dangerous and non-addictive. The harm that comes from smoking pot is to your lungs. Economic barrier: Pot is comparatively cheap and easy to get, even if it is illegal. Cocaine is expensive and hard to get.

Maybe the reverse-logic of "gateway drug" can be applied to other things effectively. Perhaps music listening habits, TV-buying habits. Eating habits.

Bottom line: Smoking pot is not this "tipping point" that will suddenly launch you into the world of harmful illegal drugs.

pot is a gateway drug in the sense that most people that want to get into drugs start with pot.

but thats it.

if people are going to do more than just pot, they've already made up their mind.

experience with pot might make people less hesitant to try other drugs. but that's a slippery slope.

plus, it's much easier to come by pot than other harder stuff. Not to say some of the harder stuff isnt easy to come by if you're in the right environment (i.e. city vs. suburbs) but no matter where you are, you can probably find pot. It's perfectly common for people to do pot recreationally without even knowing how to get harder stuff.





and on-topic

I too remember reading that sawao said he doesnt do pot but another member might. *hinting manabe.*

but that was awhile ago and when Sawao came out on stage in NYC he was acting pretty messed up. Who knows, maybe their gaining fame has changed him that way.

[quote="GoldenRhino"]
If you take the population of people who have done, or are into much more dangerous drugs...meth, heroine [sic], cocaine, [b]LSD[/b], whatever...[/quote]

Lysergic acid diethylamide (to this day, I still have no idea why it's abbreviated "LSD") is actually a relatively safe drug. LSD is non-toxic, non-addictive, and there has never been a reported case of an "LSD overdose." The only dangers present with LSD use, I can best characterize as "the stupid shit you do when you are high." However, the same exact risks apply to alcohol (i.e. driving while intoxicated, jumping off buildings/cliffs/steep slopes, and other accidental self-injury - a relevant risk known to us TCNJ students: jumping down garbage chutes, to be then compacted and delivered to a PA landfill).

The rest though, I would advise staying away from...

[quote="sheerheartattack"]Lysergic acid diethylamide (to this day, I still have no idea why it's abbreviated "LSD") [/quote]
it comes from the german word for it: "[b]L[/b]yserg[b]S[/b]äure-[b]D[/b]iethylamid".

[quote="sheerheartattack"]schtuff[/quote]

Ah, then color me uninformed on LSD. But I guess the hallucinations can get pretty hardcore sometimes, though. Like "FUUUUCK, MAKE IT STOP." Maybe not. Either way, I would recommend someone smoke pot than do LSD.

A friend of mine took LSD once. When I asked him what it was like, he said: "Dude, I fuckin' saw the Digiworld". Another one, who happens to smoke pot everyday, told me that when he tried acid for the first time, everything became colored squares, circles and triangles, and he lost his sense of perspective in a way that he could barely keep standing.

Whenever people wonder about what it must be like, I use the following example as an attempt to describe it:

[img]http://www.explosm.net/db/files/Comics/Rob/LSD.png[/img]

Oh, I never said taking LSD was consistently fun. Sorry if I made it seem that way - the results of taking it are often unpredictable. However, it is essentially harmless. Kind of like getting flicked with a rubber band. It's no fun, but doesn't really cause any harm either. Except there's also a very good chance it'll be really fun - which doesn't apply to the rubber band analogy unless you are a masochist.

[img]http://overcompensating.com/comics/20080923.png[/img]

Speaking of bad trips, there was this homeless dude where I'm from, and he took acid when he was in high school and never came off the trip. One of my teachers actually went to highschool with him too.

I never thought I would be saying this here but...

As someone who does smoke pot, I don't use any other 'harder drugs'. I do however smoke cigarettes once in a while sometimes when I know that I can't have any weed. The other only thing that I take is alcohol. But I'm definetely NOT addicted to any of that stuff. I just enjoy them sometimes. I honestly don't know why it's such a big deal. GoldenRhino actually explained things pretty well.

As for the term 'gateway' I don't know. But I've never been interested in trying anything else and I never will.