Marijuana is its own special category, but club drugs (which for some reason include date rape drugs), inhalants and steroids are all in a “miscellaneous” category together?
Also, note all the ridiculous drug propaganda lies.
The people who blabber incessantly about weed being a gateway drug are the exact REASON that I agree with them, but we VERY much disagree on the specifics.
Think of it this way:
Every adult in your life has told you that weed is JUST AS BAD as heroin and cocain and meth. You hear it repeated ad nauseum, ESPECIALLY if you were in DARE.
Now one day someone you have known for a long time offers you some because “it’s not that bad, trust me you’ll be fine” and they go ahead and take a puff or twelve. Turns out it’s not that bad. They were fine after some initial uncoordinated attempts at doing something.
So if weed is this interesting, maybe heroin isn’t that bad either?
Yeah turns out heroin IS that bad, and lumping it in with weed is like tossing the kindergarten bully into a maxsec prison.
So yeah, it’s only a “gAtEwAy dRuG” because you fucks lied for decades and made false equivalence of things and taught kids they can’t trust you.
While drunk, I got insane cravings for cocaine and nicotine
While high, I get insane cravings for pizza and Tame Impala
What specifically stands out to you as a ridiculous bit of probaganda?
It’s certainly not the most accurate or clinical, and some of the categories are a bit “eh”, but nothing popped out to me that I would describe so strongly.
If nothing else, it’s a lot more objective and grounded in reality than what they gave me in that dumb dare program. Might be why my reaction is just “close enough”.
The information in the hallucinogenic section about acid flashbacks is incorrect. This was a false rumour spread in the 70s to demonize the political opponents of Nixon.
Hrm, I always thought it was just a mis-name for PTSD after an excessive dose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_perception_disorder
It looks like there’s at least a degree of clinical validation to it being a combo of PTSD and “sometimes colors stay funny for a while”.
Are you sure you’re not thinking of “the entire war on drugs, but particularly pot and heroin”?
That’s what I thought was an invention by the Nixon administration.Oh, HPPD is definitely a thing, but extraordinarily rare.
I may have misspoke about the brown acid - this was a legit warning resulting from “home-brew chemists” attempting to make their own LSD and failing to create it properly. Most of the supplies back then were direct from Sandoz (Novartis) and basically were being given away to the scientific community for novel testing. Fun stuff.
I’m talking about the hyperbole of “acid flashbacks” which was a narrative introduced to discourage and demonize LSD usage by the political and intellectual opponents of the Nixon administration. “Rots your brain permanently” and all that other garbage.
Turns out regular LSD usage by the “hippie” community and by many people involved in high-level education (particularly college and university professors) was making people feel more connected and empathetic towards one another, and that just didn’t do for the Republicans who needed everyone to fear “the other”.
What they also did with marijuana and heroin, and subsequently with crack cocaine, was truly abhorrent.
Marijuana being a gateway drug.
It doesn’t say that I’m the text. It literally says that it is CALLED a gateway drug because of what SOME people do.
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.
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).
Having to deal with a drug dealer that wants to also sell you actually addictive drugs is the gateway.
Marijuana is addictive though. Maybe not as addictive as some other things, but pretending it’s completely non addictive is disingenuous and misleading. It’s more addictive than say LSD or psilocybin for example.
That isn’t to say it should remain illegal though. Legalisation has positive benefits even for harder, more addictive substances than marijuana. See the history of alcohol prohibition for example, or the disaster that is the war on drugs.
Weird how cigarettes and alcohol are not ‘gateway drugs.’
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.
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?
light recreational heroine
The best dessert.
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’.
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.
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
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.
