The movie Marihuana is another good one. Surprisingly it has full frontal nudity for a movie made in 1936 (they went skinny dipping, it wasn’t porn).

I ran into a study years ago that showed more heroine addicts smoke cigarettes than pot. So one might say cigarettes are a gateway drug. I dunno.

Under reporting use impacts the denominator far more than the numerator. It's silly for people to say that there are 0 negative impacts due to Marijuana use. But the percentage of users who experience these are a fraction of a fraction.

That it's a gateway is further flawed. The percentage of people who will try heroin And smoke pot, has got to be approaching 100%. Nobody shoots up and says, I draw the line at reefer. It's not causation, it's survivorship bias. If you look at the subset of Marijuana users, who also use heroin, it's again, a tiny fraction.

Ok. The weed industry has got you good.

Let me know when you reach a GI clinic and pain clinic in years time if you continue on the enlightened cannabis journey

@Paul

Yes, he is. Watch the LA City Council one he does during the week. Those people are hilarious.

People who downplay marijuana use are just playing out childish desires and not looking at the ramifications of stupidity.

I caught a few of those thinking they were chases.

I can't watch ... the level of stupid on the council puts me into a rage.

I found him and his cats during the riots and then kept following for the car chases.

I'll drink to that!

That is the day it became legal in CO

I think you got your cart in front of your horse. We were using term back when I was a little kid (70's). No good reason for it really, like most things potheads do...it's just a thing.

Where do you stand on big pharma and the prevalence of pharmaceuticals in this country.  They ok?

25 years past that point.   I haven't raped, robbed or murdered 1 person. And my poo is great!

4/20 is Joonteenth for people trying to forget it's Hitler's birthday

Lol.

CBD oil and marijuana fixes everything, man.

It’s from a plant found in nature!



Big pharma can be bad, but also produces medicines that are a net benefit. Keeping it restrained is paramount for our continued existence and has resulted in reliable means for treating a myriad of human problems.

Weed produces funny stoner movies not based in reality and New Orleans conditions that are reality.

Damn. Who in the hell didn't know this?

I'm not holistic in lieu of modern medicine.  I'm more speaking to the millions of Americans on antidepressants, opiate derivatives and psychotropic.

You good with the ramifications of all those drugs?  And the gateway to heroin after the scripts run out?

You good with the judgement on a day to day basis of all those moms, dads and kids because a doctor prescribed it and the feds approve of it?

Cmon man

Eta, and cannabis does have some legit uses.  Ask a chemo patient.  Yes most want to get high, but it has legit usage, just like speed and opiates.

How did the marijuana gateway myth get started?

First, 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, 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. One example he gave was of two young lovers who became so crazed after smoking a joint that they eloped and got married. Marijuana causes people to become so crazy that they get married. The other reasons he gave were no more sensible. The hemp industry representatives who testified were uniformly surprised and mystified to hear that a dangerous drug could be made from this widespread and common crop. The American Medical Association testified that they knew of no evidence that marijuana was a dangerous drug. (2,3,4)

The US Government encouraged farmers to grow hemp during World War II, because it was vital to the country's war effort. There were no claims at the time that marijuana would lead to harder drugs.(2,3,10)

In 1944, the La Guardia Committee Report on Marihuana confirmed Mr. Anslinger's statement -- there was no connection at all between marijuana and heroin.(6)

In 1951, the story changed. Harry Anslinger was testifying for the Boggs Act about why he needed more money and men to enforce the marijuana laws. Just before he testified, the head of the Federal addiction research program testified that they knew for certain that all of the reasons that had been given for outlawing marijuana in 1937 were entirely bogus. They knew for certain that marijuana did not cause insanity, criminality and death. Anslinger was left with no reason for tougher laws so he made up -- on the spot, with not a shred of evidence -- the assertion that marijuana is the certain stepping stone to heroin addiction. He directly contradicted his own testimony from 1937. It has been the basis of US marijuana policy ever since. (2,3)

Since that time, the Federal drug enforcement officials have tried to support this myth with the idea that most heroin addicts started with marijuana, and statistics which seem to show that marijuana users are more likely to have used cocaine. The first assertion would get a failing grade in any freshman Logic class. The second can be explained by the fact that people who engage in one risk-taking behavior are likely to engage in other risk-taking behaviors. It, too, would earn a failing grade in freshman Logic.

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.

Research done in California on medical marijuana patients showed that, for those with hard drug abuse problems, the most commonly used first drugs were alcohol and tobacco. Hard drug abusers start using drugs at an early age and use anything they can get their hands on, marijuana just being one more item on the list. They also have common histories of early diagnoses with ADD, PTSD, serious problems in school, and other early behavioral issues. The same research showed that, for hard drug abusers, 90 percent greatly reduced their use of hard drugs and ten percent quit completely when they took up the regular use of marijuana.

Prohibition is not control. Prohibition is the complete lack of control. See Al Capone.

Support for marijuana legalization has grown in the states that have legalized it. One recent Pew Research survey showed that the public supports some form of marijuana legalization by a margin of 92-8. Only the lunatic fringe is against it now.

Great. Yet another reason to smell skunk while driving to work, jobsites and home.

Alcohol drinkers puke far more. The solution in both cases is to quit. It doesn't justify punishing anyone who doesn't puke, or even those who do.

Yeah, even here in NOVA, I smell that nasty skunk odor daily!  It reeks!  I guess the cops around here have been told that smoking weed doesn't impair drivers anymore.  

Significant decrease in road rage.

Correlation is not causation. (But I still don't use it, nor encourage it)

Cigars smell worse. Looks like we need mandatory minimum sentences for anyone possessing a stogie.

Cigar smokers get the bullet too.
https://www.ar15.com/forums/General/Am-I-the-ass/5-2639208/

Where did you get this from?

But let me point it out again, there is a reason why alcohol and tobacco are first in the progression. They are legal and readily available more so than cannabis.

If cannabis was legal, it would just be another first step to stupidity and ruin. It bears out biologically, it’s just that policy has prevented it from being first line step.


https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/marijuana-gateway-drug


I look at alcohol/tobacco/marijuana chronic users all the same: broken, weak, and needing rehab. It deserves the scorn and shouldn’t be accepted because it weakens the USA as a whole, just like Hollywood culture, the dissolution of the American family, etc.

It all coalesces towards degeneracy, crime, disease, and chaos.

Mmmm...Cheetos

I’m a lunatic fringe.

What’s next?

Cocaine? Meth? Opioids?

Just like the slippery slope of LGBTQAI…

Lol and people wonder why homelessness, mental illness, substance abuse is up exponentially.

We have grown so weak, people are afraid or are so disconnected from each other, the slide continues to madness.

Lol, two completely reasons for vomiting.

Let’s put it this way:

You drink enough that you puke.

You smoke so much you puke even when you aren’t smoking or in a high state. For a very long time. To the point you vomit yourself to death.

https://druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/gateway_myth.htm  It contains links to the original source references, including Anslinger's own testimony for the Marihuana Tax Act.

Your reference doesn't mention alcohol and tobacco and only speculates on causes. Huh.

Tell us what you think marijuana does. That should be pretty funny.

I am sure you have references on people who vomited themselves to death after smoking pot. Right? Like all the people who died from smoking pot and puking way back at Woodstock.

How does that justify punishing anyone who doesn't have that problem? How does that justify punishing anyone who does?

So, policy (violation of rights by the muzzle of a gun) has prevented the gateway drug from being a gateway drug. Rather, its now a second line gateway, behind the initial gateways of alcohol and tobacco? This is all laid out by an arm of the same government who is currently at war with the second gateway drug. All of which is based on science, despite it being illegal to hold any real scientific studies, since the second gateway is a schedule 1 drug...

Freedom be scary yo.

Let's ban anything that is harmful.

WEED
Sugar
Tobacco
Alcohol
Trans fats
Knives
Pesticides
Masturbating
Knives
Bats
Swimming pools
Cars
Rust
Infections
Stupid posters
Rot pockets
Scaffolding
GUNS
white supremacists
Penis pumps
Covid


Can't legislate the human condition.  Punish the crimes ( you know,  where there's a victim) they commit.  

You make a ton of assumptions.  Assuming all of a certain group behaves the same is lazy and disingenuous.

Your last sentence is literally the human experience.   Without drugs.

You said you were good with opioids

Just FYI, at one time all these drugs were completely legal without any restrictions at all. There were no content laws so cocaine was included in everything from kids' toothache drops to soda pop to tobacco cheroots (crack cocaine.) Heroin was included in some baby colic remedies.

There were no labeling laws so people didn't even know what they were taking.

There were no age limits so kids could buy the stuff.

There were no advertising laws so sellers could claim that their product would cure any problem had by you or your mule. Even the Pope was in ads telling people to drink cocaine wine for the wonderful health benefits.

Even under those conditions, the drugs were not considered to be the major problem that alcohol was. They did not become a major problem until 1915. We know exactly when the major problems started and we know exactly why.
See Hooked: Illegal Drugs and How They Got That Way

Morphine is used regularly in medicine by millions of people. Heroin is completely illegal. Explain the medical difference between them that justifies heroin being completely illegal.

I always wonder why LGBTQAI is the first thing on someone's mind, completely unprompted, in unrelated conversations. Why is that?

Tell us what you think marijuana does. That should be hilarious.

What I know it does comes from the anesthesia friends.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6650211/

Boiled down from substance perspectives, drugs and alcohol users change their body physiology and biochemistry for the worse.

The societal effects can be seen anywhere where it is liberalized or concentrated like the cities, neighborhoods, areas that I have mentioned before.

Differing THC concentrations from 50 years ago to now.

I’m making a call, I don’t really take seriously the musings of a pot head of 25 years.

It just shows a chronic lapse in lifelong judgment.

He would have been too busy feasting on Taco Bell and Doritos to warmonger.

How do you instantly know when someone is lying about marijuana?

One clear sign is when they tell you that the weed from the 60s, early 70s was weaker than today's weed.

How do you instantly know that it is a lie?

Because the means to test potency didn't even exist then. When they first started testing they tested year-old weed that had been stored under poor conditions.

Except it isn’t.

Over time while there has been all those things, stuff today is way better than say tribal America where people fought each other over land for food/hunting, enslaving rival tribes, etc while also consuming marijuana to reach a higher state, man.

I just visited a friend who had pictures of himself having dinner with Jeff Bezos. He reported that Jeff's chef has some really excellent marijuana recipes.

Not to mention that a good deal of the software you used to post your message was written by potheads.

Tell us what you think marijuana does.

So how does that justify punishing anyone?

Again, describe what you think the effects of marijuana are. If someone takes it do they see color cartoons?

Well if you're worried about their physiology and biochemistry,  let's talk about diet, the prevalence of processed sugars, carbs and chemicals in the American diet.  Or is that not as important or flashy, you don't get to be as pompous about it.

And your nih study literally says its incomplete findings due to lack of sources.

Fucking Tweakers.

Lab tests for the active components haven’t changed in years.

Do you have evidence of them “storing it for a year under poor conditions” that doesn’t revolve around a pot business website lol

Your own words show a complete lack of understanding of human nature and the concept of living in a free society.  When you're ready to put us in a camp, you'll see how the devils lettuce kept my eyes sharp.

Gimme some for my cataracts!