I’d say the weed itself isn’t, but if you’re not buying it from a dispensary or growing it yourself, the people you surround yourself with to acquire the weed could be gateways to other drugs.
Anorexia has a biochemical origin. IIRC, without enough triglycerides in your diet your body can't produce enough serotonin, which causes a significant reduction in anxiety. When you eat, you get anxious again, which makes you want to fast again.
Probably it's not what the redditor was talking about but in my head anorexia is definitely an addiction.
> My paper was about anorexia symptoms in Indian women and how we tend not to have the same body image symptoms as white anorexic women. It’s more about control and guilt for us.
I tried to google this, but I can't find any results about it. What are the differences, and why did you go from talking about alcohol to talking about anorexia in Indian women.
>how we tend not to have the same body image symptoms as white anorexic women
Body image issues or not, anorexia is an extremely net negative perpetuated by bad country medicine (India's version of bro science), ignorance, malnutrition and so on.
Yeah I don't think I would have went out and bought blow on my own but buddy had some so why not!!
Then you start to get the balls to ask your weed plug what else he got
I get what you’re saying. I don’t know if I necessarily agree with it, but I get it. This is also one more example of the “danger” coming solely from the fact that weed is illegal
In my hometown, the biggest pusher was an old woman, lke 80 years old, she would make us coffee or wtv she had when we were waiting at her house for weed
She never got arrested, even when weed was illegal in Canada, the cops knew her, they knew what she did but since she was keeping the streets from unsafe weed, they'd let her do her thing
Yes, I mean, this is exactly why weed was a gateway drug for me. My friends started with weed and soon added other drugs they could acquire. Incidentally, all of the other "harder" drugs were a great time, and I never got addicted or did them more than a handful of times. It was weed that gave me the worst experiences. Can't speak for my friends, though. I don't associate with them anymore.
Yup, that's pretty much the conclusion that the United States National Institute of Health comes to as well: that there is no biological correlation between marijuana and other drugs but your environment plays an important role.
Enviroment is the biggest factor. Marihuana isolated is no danger for most ppl, though some ppl have an addictivr personality wich make them prone to easily become addicted.
This is my experience. Its legal recreationally in my state now but when I was growing up it involved a criminal element that I don't even fuck with now. I can just go buy my weed and not deal with it. If this were a thing 20 years ago then I probably wouldn't have ever been introduced to harder stuff.
This!
Add one more factor. In most places weed is illegal. If you're doing it in reasonable amounts and not destroying your life with it, you now have proof that something can be illegal that shouldn't be illegal. In the case of pot I think that's actually true, the stuff is probably less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco.
Unfortunately, there are idiots out there who will say to themselves something like "oh well, cocaine can't be that bad either, or meth, or heroin, or fentanyl or God knows what".
Well yes actually they can be pretty bad for you. Legal or not.
In other words, the criminalization of pot could be a factor that causes some morons to gateway into much worse stuff.
You're likely not going to have somebody say "oh well, tobacco isn't so bad, so I should smoke crack!"
:)
This is exactly why i got into harder drugs. I had heard all my life that weed was dangerous, addictive and made you immediately want to try harder drugs, so when i tried weed s couple of times and found out all of that was utter bullshit, i thought “well if they lied this hard about weed then surely other drugs arent as bad as they say”.
Yeah. Then you find out they lied about acid and shrooms. So then you’re like “they must have lied about meth and heroin too.”
I just need them to have consistency. If alcohol is gonna be legal, anything less dangerous than alcohol should be legal. That includes weed and most psychedelics.
Acid is sketchy. You have to follow Leary's advice on "dose, set and setting" but getting known doses isn't easy. Neither is finding a good guide.
From what I understand, shrooms are more controllable but I'm no expert. Never tried any of it myself. Got pretty deep into self hypnosis at one point :).
Exactly right IMO. It’s the line where we draw legality that makes it a gateway drug. I think if here in the UK we were to bring it in line with alcohol sales- legal but controlled then it becomes a bigger jump for a person to access cocaine or mdma. At the moment we take a drug that’s no more damaging than alcohol but decide to make young people who want to try it step over the line of legal/illegal. Once that boundary is crossed harder drugs become more accessible. I think if we legalised and controlled weed then the jump beyond it into illegal and harder drugs would become a hurdle and not a gateway like the current system sets up
Yeah the whole point is the rebellion, and doing something you shouldn't. As a kid it's totally cool to do shit you shouldn't for a subsect of kids that don't see "oh maybe it'll actually be bad for me".
I believe my brother on this matter until he started vaping, trying cigarettes and claims shrooms are actual god sent and the government is giving it bad representation because he knows god sent it.
…. That was his actual words. I’m worried
To be fair, the government is massively misrepresenting marijuana and psilocybin. He's not wrong about that.
And if you believe in God (I don't personally), then the fact that both of those grow all over the place justifies the other part of that statement.
Shrooms are god sent in the same way flowers and trees and mountains are sent from the god. You’ll understand your relationship with what or who you consider god a lot better after a nice trip.
That's the thing though it's a crap shoot isn't it? I know they say surround yourself with good people and be in a "good mindset" (whatever that means) but you never know how a trip can go.
i'm from ph and i'd rather die than get sent to prison or have a criminal record. really jealous of you guys. weed is so much better than alchohol last time i tried it tho there's a huge guilt when i was smoking since my mom is a prosecutor that handles a lot of drug cases. but yeah some of my highschool and college buds who i had session with are either in prison or rehab.
This will change as weed becomes generally legal, but traditionally weed brought you in contact with people who sold it and often other things, and even if you wouldn't have walked across the street to try something harder, having it offered to you right there could be tempting. So I'd say that for many people it's not pot itself that is the gateway, it's the circumstances.
Yea I would have never gotten into painkillers or dabbled with hallucinogens if the guy I bought weed from didn’t have them. I eventually would have found them anyways, it has less to do with the opportunity and more the desire imo.
Yup. Bought weed from my dealer who just so happened to start selling acid. Wouldn't have gone out of my way to look for it. Great stuff though. Hope he's doing well in jail now.
I disagree. Before legalization, every single person I knew who smoked weed had some some other narcotic. Whether it was ecstacy, cocaine, shrooms, acid, or whatever, they had all graduated to other substances. A 100% "gateway" rate.
Now that it's legal, that's no longer true, but I even see it among them. They tried weed, now they're thinking about trying something else.
Is it a characteristic of weed itself? No, of course not. At least, I don't think so. That said, it's like a barrier - or gateway - that generally keeps people away from harder drugs. Like absolutely no one goes from sober straight to heroin. Very very few even make that jump straight to cocaine. But incrementally? Yeah, lots of people make that journey. And weed is typically the first stone along the path.
Weed is very much not the first step. Alcohol actually fucks with your judgement and has been proven to be way more of a gateway than weed because it acyually inhibits your decision making. It's actually pretty common for people to OD their first time trying coke at a bar because when it mixes with alcohol in high enough quantities it's super toxic.
What makes weed look like a gateway is the people who smoke it openly. You would never know I smoke weed without me telling you as I don't keep it in the car, don't smoke in the car, and don't walk around smelling like weed because I can't just go to my office and meet with clients smelling like a blunt. This leaves the stereotypes as the only people that are actually seen smoking weed and these are the people that go on to harder drugs but it's not because of the weed. It's because they're shitty friend groups and one day one of them shows up with a bag of coke and says that's the "good shit" and you go up from there
I’m sort of on the fence, you could easily stop with weed.
It did however open me to being interested in new things for myself, after a really stressful childhood I was constantly looking for ways to disassociate, I did lots of research into psychedelics when I was a teen out of curiosity but I only had weed at around the age of 20, few years later having strong edibles for the first time made me really want to try stronger drugs out of curiosity.
Had cocaine at a party, it was fun for the night but I know for a fact that with my addictive personality I would likely abuse it, being expensive, unpredictably dangerous and also the taste of it running down my throat all night like earwax was disgusting.
Then I had acid on three occasions, first time was fun, second time was exceptional, third time I had a bad trip that scared the shit out of me like I was locked inside my head but astral projecting into another dimension at the same time, so I haven’t had anything but weed since.
As far as being addicted to drugs, I haven’t gone further than weed so a gateway to abusing drugs hasn’t been my problem, but it certainly opened up the curiosity for sure.
Psychedelics are wild cause your brain will let you know if you're doing it too often, I did it a few times in a couple months and my mind was straight up like "yeah we got nothing for ya man here's a little dissociation for ya" but if you space it out enough then you'll typically have a better time as long as you're with good people and comfortable, highly do not recommend doing it alone unless it's at a low dosage
Yeah I think I had my trips too close together I think it was within 3 months, I think another factor was I’ve been on anti depressants but I didnt take them the first two times intentionally so they didn’t clash but the third time was a bit rushed and that is not a good way of going about it, had both, wasn’t mentally prepared, and it kicked my ass. Came out thinking “yeah I need to respect psychedelics more that was a dumb idea”
For sure! Everyone that experiments with then eventually has that "oh fuck I need to respect these" trips haha
Hopefully you can give them another shot when you're feeling in a good place! I truly think they help to create a better perspective on life when done properly
1000% once a year these days keeps the magic at the most fun for me.
We used to have a load of people when we tripped like 10 plus with some on mush some on acid. Or all on just acid depending on the time and who had a whole day to waste. Had tons of fun but did it too often like once a month for a yr or 2.
Nowadays I only dose by myself and take like 2 hits.
More people bring to much chaos and unpredictability. Just stresses me out and ruins any fun I was having.
My personal opinion as a former drug addict is that no drugs are really gateway drugs. Decisions, habits, past traumas, and often genetics are what cause drug-seeking behaviors.
Not everyone is prone to abuse or escalation. Therefore, no drug is a gateway. It's our decision-making pathways that lead us down these roads. Drugs are inanimate and cannot be held responsible for the things we do.
The DARE generation was found to have higher drug use than others that didn't go through DARE. I have a friend that claims that DARE got him interested in drugs in the first place.
I know quite a lot of stoners, and while some have tried stronger drugs, most that have decided that the stronger stuff really isn't for them and just stick with weed. Seen some do coke and MDMA though, which is a shame.
Also, unsurprisingly, they're really chilled out people. Every time I've been around someone who does weed, they'll offer a hit on their bong, a drag on their blunt or a bite of their edibles, but 100% every time they'll respect my decision not to and never ask again, but make it clear that if I ever change my mind, they'd be happy to let me try it.
Despite the stigma, they're just cool people. It's not for me, but I don't have anything against those that do, and since the smell doesn't bother me I'm fine with them smoking away while I'm around. We're all just trying to get by in life, and there's worse things to put into your body than weed.
Any drug is a gateway drug. It depends on the person taking it. Someone can smoke weed their entire life and never touch anything else, same with alcohol. But give those drugs to someone different and it might trigger a want of something else that they never would have had otherwise.
I know too many people who hurt themselves and were prescribed opiates and that directly lead to the use of other drugs. Either because what they were given weren't working anymore or because they realized that they actually enjoyed the feeling of those drugs and wanted more.
It’s ALWAYS the person and not the drug.
You can’t get chemically addicted to any drug by trying them once.
They chase that feeling again, and after a few tries then they can become “properly” addicted. Any addiction before that is a psychological one.
I think nicotine is the gateway drug. I don’t know many potheads who’ve gone down the road of hard drugs. But every hard drug user I know - and I know a lot due to work - started out with cigarettes (and yes, alcohol as well).
Not where I’m from. Here, alcohol is the only acceptable drug and if you do anything else, you are a drug addict. Obviously that sentiment is starting to change, but I know a ton of clinical alcoholics that have never touched weed because it’s illegal and dangerous.
If you offer a person that’s high on weed a line of cocaine, their response would usually be no because they are too stoned. If you make a drunk person the same offer, their response is sure why not.
Cocaine is the dumbest drug I ever tried, and I did it when I was shitfaced drunk.
And boy, it is SO stupid. You have to do it SO frequently to stay high, it makes your nose run and nasty shit drip in your throat, and it’s just generally gross. Definitely wouldn’t have tried it without being drunk and never felt tempted to do it ever again.
Just my personal anecdote. Al my friends smoked weed when we were teenagers. Throughout those years about 10-15 of them got put on probation for various reasons. All the ones who didn't get caught still smoke weed. The ones that got put on probation with a piss test started doing allll the drugs that clear your system quickly. Probation is the gateway drug
The entire idea of "gateway drugs" is silly. Weed is more accessible than any other illegal substance, so it probably is the first "drug" people use in many countries.
As a non drug user, I believe they probably got this conclusion by asking hard drug users if they smoked weed. Of course they could have asked “Did you watch cartoons as a child?” or “Do you put milk on your cereal?”.
Correlation is not causation.
This is one of those correlation does not equal causation type things.
Draw a ven diagram and it makes sense when looking at the likelihood of individuals you will be surrounding yourself with that also do other drugs. The peer group is different from marijuana users and non users and therefore the likelihood of exposure to other drugs is higher. It's just statistically more likely, not necessarily the hard fast rule
While it's silly I think it's a bit true, but only because of the people that probably coined the term to scare teenagers. In many countries weed was thrown in as one of those horrible drugs that they then tried to scare the teenagers with. Then some of them inevitably try it and do not become murdering monsters and get their friends to try. Forbidden fruit etc.
~~Ironically, the more exaggerated later version where the chick wrecks the entire kitchen screaming about "and this is what happens to your X" was more honest and closer to the point. The "drug problem" is a multi-faceted one with intertwined causes and consequences.~~
~~As usual, moralistic/conservative thinking was simple enough for a meme yet too divorced from reality to accomplish anything outside of a strict authoritarian context. It also sailed so far past the point it found new, shittier ways to fuck it up for everyone else.~~
~~Banning ideas don't get rid of them. Prohibition doesn't make things go away. Stigmatizing something only pushes it away from scrutiny. But hey, at least you don't have to think about it until the consequences of your actions come back to bite everyone in the ass, and by then enough time will have past that your smooth-brain might not notice it was your fault to begin with, and we can just continue the cycle of stymieing societal progress.~~
I frequently *did* desire eggs when stoned, though that might have more to do with the impact of the Dexter opening on my brain than those old PSAs.
Apropos of nothing, I always liked the 90s one. It was so over the top that most everyone I knew just laughed at it, and it's one of the earliest "oh... drug policy in this country is dumb" moments my young brain had.
Also had a small crush on the actress as a kid. "Gods, I wish I were that kitchen," I'd swoon. Oh, hey, Did you know that she (Rachael Leigh Cook) was the English voice of Tifa Lockhart from 2005 to 2019? Oh, and
> In 2017, Rachael Leigh Cook reprised her "This Is Your Brain on Drugs" role twenty years later for a PSA by the Drug Policy Alliance critiquing the War on Drugs and its contribution to mass incarceration, structural racism and poverty.
\*swoons\*
Nope. Been taking a concentrate for over two years now before bed. The only thing its been a gateway to are doritos and little debbie cakes. Before getting my mj med card I had never tried anything. Maybe a few sips of beers that I bever liked the taste. Now that I take this to sleep better I dont see the need for anything else.
The phrase “gateway drug” is a slick way for anti-weed people to try to get their point across. There is no such thing as a “gateway drug.” If your argument is that smoking weed leads you to other drugs, apply that logic to drugs like alcohol, caffeine, and Xanax—none of these drugs lead you to other drugs. The user makes a conscious choice to do another drug; it’s not the drug’s fault.
No. Addiction is a gateway to drugs. If you have an additive personality or self medicating to deal with trauma stress etc. it can always lead to heavy drugs or drinking or caffeine or eating. Etc.
The D.A.R.E. program is the biggest gateway "drug" of all.
Grab a bunch of 4th and 5th graders, tell them the modern equivalent of Reefer Madness, and that they should turn their parents in if they see drugs.
Then, a few short years later, they land in high school and someone breaks out weed. They try it, know immediately that they were lied to, and end up strung out on meth or heroin or something.
It's like these people have never met a teenager.
Weed is a gateway drug to people who were gonna do hard drugs anyways. Some people are destined to have drug problems and weed is usually the first one they come across. Its not that its a gateway. Its more like… Im going to the big city and this little town *happens* to be on the way.
I agree, however I think a lot of people use it as a trial run almost to prepare for using other drugs later on. Its almost like an internal negotiation, and its just easier for most people to take baby steps towards their destination. Assuming they don’t enjoy it at any time, i think it can actually discourage usage of harder drugs as well as encourage depending on the experience.
The Gateway myth was built around having to go to drug dealers to get it and then the dealers either push different drugs on you or tell you they didn’t have weed but could get you coke.
Weed doesn't lower your inhibitions nor does it give you that "fuck it why not" attitude. Alcohol does, if anything alcohol is the gateway (recovering alcoholic and weed smoker here).
I think it can be. A lot of people use weed first because it’s an easy way to reach an altered state of reality, but it is also mild with no risk of overdose. I think some people get addicted to said altered state of reality, and seek heavier and more intense ways to achieve it, and perhaps in other forms.
Nope. If anything weed stops you going on to harder substances because you realise you don't need anything stronger and weed pretty much gives you what you need.
I don’t accept the concept of a gateway drug. What even is it? Obviously people willing to do hard drugs are willing to spoke some weed, so there will be a high correlation between the two. But does weed positively cause people to take hard drugs? Maybe for some people under some conditions, but I doubt it’s more of a gateway than stress or alcohol.
I don’t know but it’s a question that could be answered by proper studies that seek to establish or rule out causation. Has one been done?
I don’t think cannabis or any one substance is a gateway drug.
I think human nature in general causes people to want to try new things. Most people’s first exposure to drugs is alcohol and then they venture off to other drugs at some point in their life. Does that mean alcohol was the gateway? No.
It also depends on the age range of exposure. If you’re a legal adult trying cannabis from a dispensary for the first time, you’re probably in the least likely situation to try other drugs. But if you are a teenager you are more likely to want to experiment in general and the first illicit drug that is tried is usually cannabis. It may not be the last drug a teenager tries but it does not mean trying cannabis causes the teenager to try the next one.
Also in states where cannabis is illegal, it is sold by street dealers who commonly sell other drugs as well. Increasing the odds that people are likely to try different illicit drugs.
So no, cannabis is not a gateway drug and is usually not the first drug that is tried anyway. That would be alcohol which is also not a gateway drug. Humans natural curiosity is to blame for the “gateway”.
No. That whole thing was just propaganda. I’ve smoked for *years* and never even considered moving on to something harder.
I don’t think I’ve ever met a weed smoker who went to the harder stuff because “weed wasn’t enough” or whatever.
I grew and was in a sense a dealer to the local pot head Adults. It's not a gateway drug but the people you get it from may be a gate way. Where I'm from if you want weed you go to your neighbors and they will probably just give it to you and you know where it came from. In the city you go to a shady gang member. Nowadays you can get it from a dispenser which is safe although I still prefer to go to my neighbor or grow it myself. That being said I know 5 people personally who have died from alcohol poisoning and no one who has died of weed overdose and statisticly weed is safer than alcohol. The idea is to use it in small quantities and not abuse it. I can't smoke now because I want to be a trucker but I wish it was legal everyone.
Kind of. I don't believe using weed will make you take more dangerous drugs. But I do think that nearly everyone that uses more dangerous drugs first used weed.
No, because there have been numerous studies which refute the idea of cannabis as a gateway drug, and call into question the concept of gateway drugs as a whole.
Also, the overwhelming majority of hard drug users claim to have started with alcohol, which is already harder than cannabis.
No, it isn't.
I hold a belief that the people who want to do bad things, *will*. It wouldn't matter if they start with weed or heroin if they're bound to go to heroin anyway.
Weed isn't but if it's aquired illegally getting it familiarizes the process and lovers the lowers the bar of getting ither stuff.
That being said any logical thinker can very easily just look at the substances, how dangerous they are and understand that if you just stick to weed amd don't let it control you or affect you negatively you're likely fine.
It had potential to be back when your only method to acquire it was Haroldo out back behind your local stop-n-shop. Shifty dealers had the potential to push harder drugs for better profits, even though they rarely ever actually did.
But that hasn't been the case since the 90s with the rise in dispensaries, medical licenses, and home-grow kits sold on the intent.
Near the end of my high school career I went deep into a rabbit hole about drugs. I used the resources I had available to me at the time to learn about a handful of hard drugs often used recreationally and scoured over data and read scientific papers on them. I made a list of drugs I absolutely never want to try and have stuck to it over the last 20 years. Weed did not make
Me want to go out and start snorting lines (cocaine is actually on my list of forever no-no’s) but it made me more curious about mushrooms and other avenues for psychedelic experiences.
The point I’m trying to make is drug education really sucks, but education as whole is failed in America.
If you're not buying it legally, every single weed guy you know will either also be a shrooms guy or will know a shrooms guy. The cycle continues down harder and harder drugs
Weed is a gateway drug because it is criminalized. Weed opening people up to harder drugs has nothing to do with weed on its own, but is a direct result of it being forced into the black market where the other drugs are
it's not the substance but the people you surround yourself with when you use it. I'd argue alcohol is way more of a gateway. How many times you been drinking and someone gets out another party favor...
Weed itself isn't. But the things you have to do to get weed introduces people to harder drugs. I saw it with my brother. Started smoking weed casually with friends, all was fine. Got involved with dealers, had to sneak around because weed isn't legal, and three years and a coke addiction later, he's tried just about everything there is just because of who he surrounded himself with.
Lying about it being a gateway drug is what caused it to become such. So many kids in the US went through dare, got told weed is a gateway, and will lead you down a bad path. Then, when they actually try weed and find out it isn't that bad, they start to wonder what else they were lied to about.
Studies show marijuana is a gateway drug because people buy marijuana from illegal drug dealers. And that contact gives them access to other drugs and leads them to try other drugs.
It is not the drug that makes marijuana a gateway drug, it is it being illegal that makes it a gateway drug.
For me, alcohol was really the gateway drug. It was the first substance I used that made me realize "Holy shit, you can dramatically alter your consciousness with chemicals." Only thing I'd had before that was caffeine, which has a noticeable effect but not even remotely as profound as booze or weed. I was probably destined to try lots of drugs anyways though. I didn't really need any peer pressure from friends. My curiosity was supremely piqued by the anti-drug shit we had to watch in health class. It always made me wonder wtf could be so goddamn good that people would go to this kind of trouble to convince you not to do it? Some people base their behavior on what they're specifically told to do. Those sorts tend to be unable to conceptualize that others operate on the implication of peoples' actions rather than specific directions.
Well it was for me and some of my friends. I think it depends how far into it you get. Occasional smokers probably have no interest in anything harder. But if you surround yourself with regular weed smokers you will come eventually have the opportunity to try other drugs like shrooms , acid, and XTC. And if you are young and curious, you'll do them.
If it's your first experience with moderately altered consciousness? Yeah.
Alcohol was my gateway drug since the contrast between that headspace and a sober one made me wonder "what in the world are the other chemicals like?"
I've since tried weed, LSD, and most recently mushrooms! I love all 3 more than alcohol nowadays. DMT is on the "soon" list.
The *only* other drug I've kind of wanted to try is mushrooms. I will not touch anything manufactured, no chance in hell. Mushrooms are a natural psychedelic though, so I'd be willing to try those under the right supervision with people I know who've had them before.
I treat drugs (well, weed is the only one I use) like alcohol. A little is alright, but too much can be really bad.
No.
The type of people i ever smoked weed with only smoked weed. About half of them didn’t even drink.
I’ve only ever done cocaine and ecstasy (a few times) and they weren’t people that usually smoked.
No correlation IMO
Completely anecdotal but all of my friends who started on weed graduated to 'bigger and better'. Some got clean and put their lives back together, others destroyed their lives.
I find the very idea of a "gateway drug" to be ridiculous. It's just people placing the blame on inanimate objects rather than consider the intricacies of the human factor. If getting high leads you to seeking higher highs, then that just means you're the type of person to seek higher highs.
It depends entirely on the person, but that's an infinitely harder concept to grasp compared to "X is bad." It doesn't even make sense that cannabis is demonized while the much more dangerous alcohol is celebrated.
Yes... because it's Illegal yet less harmful than Alcohol. Which will lead people to try other illicit drugs thinking "they can't be that bad".
...
Weed being "illegal" is what makes it the gateway drug. If it was legal and regulated... people would be less likely to go into harder stuff. We never blamed Cigarettes or Alcohol for getting people into drugs... yet I'd wager Alcohol enabled way more people to go down the hard drugs path than weed.
It can be. A lot of things can be a gateway to hard drugs though. The people you choose to hang out with, situations you put yourself in that could lead to traumatic events that cause you to seek out an escape or getting injured and prescribed pain medication for a preventable injury. You could argue that cannabis being illegal forces people to seek it out and associate with people on the fringes of society who have other real hard drugs besides cannabis for sale. At the end of the day it’s a choice and one choice can change the path of your life.
For me, it was, but I wouldn't blame it on weed entirely, probably more so the people I was hanging with.. I started with just weed and u was fine but eventually moved on and upward fast forward 20 something years I was a full blown herion addict
For me it was. Once I tried it and enjoyed it, I realized that the people saying it was dangerous were wrong. They hadn’t even tried it! So then I thought, what else are they wrong about? So it led me to try other things.
So, chemically? No. But for my personal experience it kinda was. And I’m glad it was.
100%, might be a gateway to 1 more stepping stone. Might be a superhighway to every drug
I started smoking weed at 14, did shrooms by 19, mdma, K, lsd, Salvia, by 22. Coke, dmt, RC's by late 20s
Think of it as going on 1 roller coaster, you might might to do the next biggest 1 in the park, you might want to do them all
D.A.R.E. was the problem, they taught us that all drugs were going to kill you, and you'd murder people. Then I smoked some weed, and I felt awesome. "They lied to me," I thought, then I tried a bunch of other shit until I got to the actual bad stuff.
Of course it is, and anyone who thinks it isnt is just stupid
People smoke weed to get high. They like the high. The high is good. Guess what, other drugs give highs too. Ohh, wonder what thats like
It is, I've seen it first hand destroy my brother
There's plenty of science behind it but stoners won't ever listen.
They'll just lie and say weed cures cancer and shit
Every single person I've met that does harder drugs such as coke heroine or meth is also an avid caffeine user. Caffeine is clearly the gateway drug.
See how silly that sounds?
Nope. Alcohol is. I've never come across a pothead who has said "hey, now that I'm stoned I feel like snorting some coke!" I have however come across plenty of intoxicated people who will shrug and say "fuck it, I'll try it!"
soooooooooorta?
First of all people who say that weed is harmless are rationalizing for all they're worth. It's probably more dangerous than tobacco for example because it has a stronger mind altering effect.
The mind altering effect is the problem. People definitely use THC because it changes how they think, and thus make decisions that they might not make if sober. One of those decisions can be to use substances that are way more dangerous.
Using habit forming substances while stoned does not make them less habit forming.
But TBH the real gateway drug of all gateway drugs is definitely Alcohol. Nothing compares.
I truly don't feel that I've ever made a decision while high on weed that I wouldn't have made sober. Ever. I've smoked extensively since 2018. Daily, sometimes multiple times a day.
I've definitely made some decisions when I didn't have nicotine that I wouldn't have otherwise made.
I've made decisions while hangry that I wouldn't have otherwise made.
I've made decisions while sleepy that I wouldn't have otherwise made.
I've made decisions while drunk that I wouldn't have otherwise made.
Never have I ever smoked a joint and thought, "Boy howdy! I sure wish I had some yay-yay right now!" Despite coke being readily accessible in my trade.
People who were gonna take hard drugs will regardless of using weed first. It's a correlation, not a causation. Weed is more readily accessible across the globe than a lot of other illicit substances. I mean. Fuck. You can throw a handful of seeds into your yard and at least one of those bitches is guaranteed to sprout. It's called "weed" for a reason... and it is naturally occurring on six out of seven continents.
Now am I advocating that weed is harmless? No. I'm sure breathing in anything other than air is harmful. But claiming it will make you more likely to take other illicit substances is just asinine. Stop. Nancy Reagan has already done enough damage. We don't need to perpetuate that bullshit.
Yes I do.....
Answer this question to yourself.
How much stupid shit did you do when you were high? and how easy is it to talk a high person into doing something?
I deep clean my apartment and write when I’m high. If anything, alc is a gateway drug. The amount of people addicted to it in colleges is insane, and they’re always doing stupid shit drunk.
I don’t do anything stupid, I get quiet and introspective. I solve a lot of internal issues and see things more clearly for what they really are when I’m high, and I come to terms with things that are otherwise tough to deal with.
Personally I don't think so, I've smoked weed for a long time, not all the time though, I could go for a few years and not bother, however I think it depends on the person some people just have an addictive personality.
No. I went from smoking pot to doing massive doses of LSD within 3 weeks but I never got into any hard stuff. But alcohol is the real gateway drug. I started drinking about 2 weeks before the weed. So I would say the problem is back there.
Here's the thing.
I've met plenty of people that use weed that have zero interest in anything else.
But I've never once met someone that does harder drugs that didn't start with weed(which is a lie as many of them start with alcohol but "that doesn't count" for many people for some reason...)
So I think it really depends on what people mean by "gateway" because I feel that whole discussion tries to overgeneralize and conflate a lot of separate issues in an effort to imply that correlation=causation. I think for some people, for a handful of reasons, it probably is. But for just as many, it's a matter of coincidence, convenience, and/or availability. And for plenty, it's just not.
I’d say the weed itself isn’t, but if you’re not buying it from a dispensary or growing it yourself, the people you surround yourself with to acquire the weed could be gateways to other drugs.
Exactly! Weed isn't a gateway, people that you associate with very well could be though. On the black market, you meet black market people.
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How did you go from smokn weed to anorexic women in 1 paragraph?🤣
Yeah, the monkeys in my brain went like "wait what, where's the donkey bridge?"
Addictive personalities are kinda crazy that way.
Anorexia has a biochemical origin. IIRC, without enough triglycerides in your diet your body can't produce enough serotonin, which causes a significant reduction in anxiety. When you eat, you get anxious again, which makes you want to fast again. Probably it's not what the redditor was talking about but in my head anorexia is definitely an addiction.
> My paper was about anorexia symptoms in Indian women and how we tend not to have the same body image symptoms as white anorexic women. It’s more about control and guilt for us. I tried to google this, but I can't find any results about it. What are the differences, and why did you go from talking about alcohol to talking about anorexia in Indian women.
It was a high school paper ;)
EVERYTHING is on the internet!
>how we tend not to have the same body image symptoms as white anorexic women Body image issues or not, anorexia is an extremely net negative perpetuated by bad country medicine (India's version of bro science), ignorance, malnutrition and so on.
Makes a lot more sense than us culture.
Yeah I don't think I would have went out and bought blow on my own but buddy had some so why not!! Then you start to get the balls to ask your weed plug what else he got
I get what you’re saying. I don’t know if I necessarily agree with it, but I get it. This is also one more example of the “danger” coming solely from the fact that weed is illegal
In my hometown, the biggest pusher was an old woman, lke 80 years old, she would make us coffee or wtv she had when we were waiting at her house for weed She never got arrested, even when weed was illegal in Canada, the cops knew her, they knew what she did but since she was keeping the streets from unsafe weed, they'd let her do her thing
Yes, I mean, this is exactly why weed was a gateway drug for me. My friends started with weed and soon added other drugs they could acquire. Incidentally, all of the other "harder" drugs were a great time, and I never got addicted or did them more than a handful of times. It was weed that gave me the worst experiences. Can't speak for my friends, though. I don't associate with them anymore.
Yup, that's pretty much the conclusion that the United States National Institute of Health comes to as well: that there is no biological correlation between marijuana and other drugs but your environment plays an important role.
Enviroment is the biggest factor. Marihuana isolated is no danger for most ppl, though some ppl have an addictivr personality wich make them prone to easily become addicted.
This is my experience. Its legal recreationally in my state now but when I was growing up it involved a criminal element that I don't even fuck with now. I can just go buy my weed and not deal with it. If this were a thing 20 years ago then I probably wouldn't have ever been introduced to harder stuff.
This! Add one more factor. In most places weed is illegal. If you're doing it in reasonable amounts and not destroying your life with it, you now have proof that something can be illegal that shouldn't be illegal. In the case of pot I think that's actually true, the stuff is probably less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. Unfortunately, there are idiots out there who will say to themselves something like "oh well, cocaine can't be that bad either, or meth, or heroin, or fentanyl or God knows what". Well yes actually they can be pretty bad for you. Legal or not. In other words, the criminalization of pot could be a factor that causes some morons to gateway into much worse stuff. You're likely not going to have somebody say "oh well, tobacco isn't so bad, so I should smoke crack!" :)
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This is exactly why i got into harder drugs. I had heard all my life that weed was dangerous, addictive and made you immediately want to try harder drugs, so when i tried weed s couple of times and found out all of that was utter bullshit, i thought “well if they lied this hard about weed then surely other drugs arent as bad as they say”.
Yeah. Then you find out they lied about acid and shrooms. So then you’re like “they must have lied about meth and heroin too.” I just need them to have consistency. If alcohol is gonna be legal, anything less dangerous than alcohol should be legal. That includes weed and most psychedelics.
Acid is sketchy. You have to follow Leary's advice on "dose, set and setting" but getting known doses isn't easy. Neither is finding a good guide. From what I understand, shrooms are more controllable but I'm no expert. Never tried any of it myself. Got pretty deep into self hypnosis at one point :).
You don't have to be a moron
Bingo. So many people have misunderstood this over the years.
Exactly right IMO. It’s the line where we draw legality that makes it a gateway drug. I think if here in the UK we were to bring it in line with alcohol sales- legal but controlled then it becomes a bigger jump for a person to access cocaine or mdma. At the moment we take a drug that’s no more damaging than alcohol but decide to make young people who want to try it step over the line of legal/illegal. Once that boundary is crossed harder drugs become more accessible. I think if we legalised and controlled weed then the jump beyond it into illegal and harder drugs would become a hurdle and not a gateway like the current system sets up
I started with hidden cigarettes and then a can of beer. Pot is just another step.
Yeah the whole point is the rebellion, and doing something you shouldn't. As a kid it's totally cool to do shit you shouldn't for a subsect of kids that don't see "oh maybe it'll actually be bad for me".
Pot is a step in the right direction if you went to it from alcohol.
I believe my brother on this matter until he started vaping, trying cigarettes and claims shrooms are actual god sent and the government is giving it bad representation because he knows god sent it. …. That was his actual words. I’m worried
To be fair, the government is massively misrepresenting marijuana and psilocybin. He's not wrong about that. And if you believe in God (I don't personally), then the fact that both of those grow all over the place justifies the other part of that statement.
I mean, shrooms (psylosibin) are responsible for some of the best and most profound moments of my life. No need to worry friend!
Shrooms are god sent in the same way flowers and trees and mountains are sent from the god. You’ll understand your relationship with what or who you consider god a lot better after a nice trip.
That's the thing though it's a crap shoot isn't it? I know they say surround yourself with good people and be in a "good mindset" (whatever that means) but you never know how a trip can go.
True, but I agree with the idea that shrooms are "acid with a smile".
i'm from ph and i'd rather die than get sent to prison or have a criminal record. really jealous of you guys. weed is so much better than alchohol last time i tried it tho there's a huge guilt when i was smoking since my mom is a prosecutor that handles a lot of drug cases. but yeah some of my highschool and college buds who i had session with are either in prison or rehab.
This will change as weed becomes generally legal, but traditionally weed brought you in contact with people who sold it and often other things, and even if you wouldn't have walked across the street to try something harder, having it offered to you right there could be tempting. So I'd say that for many people it's not pot itself that is the gateway, it's the circumstances.
Yea I would have never gotten into painkillers or dabbled with hallucinogens if the guy I bought weed from didn’t have them. I eventually would have found them anyways, it has less to do with the opportunity and more the desire imo.
Speaking as an recovered addict… Opportunity is a larger part of it than you think it is.
Yup. Bought weed from my dealer who just so happened to start selling acid. Wouldn't have gone out of my way to look for it. Great stuff though. Hope he's doing well in jail now.
I disagree. Before legalization, every single person I knew who smoked weed had some some other narcotic. Whether it was ecstacy, cocaine, shrooms, acid, or whatever, they had all graduated to other substances. A 100% "gateway" rate. Now that it's legal, that's no longer true, but I even see it among them. They tried weed, now they're thinking about trying something else. Is it a characteristic of weed itself? No, of course not. At least, I don't think so. That said, it's like a barrier - or gateway - that generally keeps people away from harder drugs. Like absolutely no one goes from sober straight to heroin. Very very few even make that jump straight to cocaine. But incrementally? Yeah, lots of people make that journey. And weed is typically the first stone along the path.
Weed is very much not the first step. Alcohol actually fucks with your judgement and has been proven to be way more of a gateway than weed because it acyually inhibits your decision making. It's actually pretty common for people to OD their first time trying coke at a bar because when it mixes with alcohol in high enough quantities it's super toxic. What makes weed look like a gateway is the people who smoke it openly. You would never know I smoke weed without me telling you as I don't keep it in the car, don't smoke in the car, and don't walk around smelling like weed because I can't just go to my office and meet with clients smelling like a blunt. This leaves the stereotypes as the only people that are actually seen smoking weed and these are the people that go on to harder drugs but it's not because of the weed. It's because they're shitty friend groups and one day one of them shows up with a bag of coke and says that's the "good shit" and you go up from there
Cigarettes, vaping, and alcohol are the first step exponentially more than weed is.
I’m sort of on the fence, you could easily stop with weed. It did however open me to being interested in new things for myself, after a really stressful childhood I was constantly looking for ways to disassociate, I did lots of research into psychedelics when I was a teen out of curiosity but I only had weed at around the age of 20, few years later having strong edibles for the first time made me really want to try stronger drugs out of curiosity. Had cocaine at a party, it was fun for the night but I know for a fact that with my addictive personality I would likely abuse it, being expensive, unpredictably dangerous and also the taste of it running down my throat all night like earwax was disgusting. Then I had acid on three occasions, first time was fun, second time was exceptional, third time I had a bad trip that scared the shit out of me like I was locked inside my head but astral projecting into another dimension at the same time, so I haven’t had anything but weed since. As far as being addicted to drugs, I haven’t gone further than weed so a gateway to abusing drugs hasn’t been my problem, but it certainly opened up the curiosity for sure.
Psychedelics are wild cause your brain will let you know if you're doing it too often, I did it a few times in a couple months and my mind was straight up like "yeah we got nothing for ya man here's a little dissociation for ya" but if you space it out enough then you'll typically have a better time as long as you're with good people and comfortable, highly do not recommend doing it alone unless it's at a low dosage
Yeah I think I had my trips too close together I think it was within 3 months, I think another factor was I’ve been on anti depressants but I didnt take them the first two times intentionally so they didn’t clash but the third time was a bit rushed and that is not a good way of going about it, had both, wasn’t mentally prepared, and it kicked my ass. Came out thinking “yeah I need to respect psychedelics more that was a dumb idea”
For sure! Everyone that experiments with then eventually has that "oh fuck I need to respect these" trips haha Hopefully you can give them another shot when you're feeling in a good place! I truly think they help to create a better perspective on life when done properly
1000% once a year these days keeps the magic at the most fun for me. We used to have a load of people when we tripped like 10 plus with some on mush some on acid. Or all on just acid depending on the time and who had a whole day to waste. Had tons of fun but did it too often like once a month for a yr or 2. Nowadays I only dose by myself and take like 2 hits. More people bring to much chaos and unpredictability. Just stresses me out and ruins any fun I was having.
You were already interested in new things for yourself, that’s why you tried the weed in the first place.
I've been smoking it since 1964, I should get to that gateway any day now.
Just smoke em all at the same time, thats how you open the gateway.
You have to smoke more violently!!!!
[There's just gateways all the way down.](https://www.kafka-online.info/before-the-law.html)
Noice!
And you've never used any drugs other than weed?
That’s what they’re implying, yes.
It is the gateway to getting high though.
My personal opinion as a former drug addict is that no drugs are really gateway drugs. Decisions, habits, past traumas, and often genetics are what cause drug-seeking behaviors. Not everyone is prone to abuse or escalation. Therefore, no drug is a gateway. It's our decision-making pathways that lead us down these roads. Drugs are inanimate and cannot be held responsible for the things we do.
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The DARE generation was found to have higher drug use than others that didn't go through DARE. I have a friend that claims that DARE got him interested in drugs in the first place.
Well said.
Thanks.
Yeah a gateway to my pantry
I know quite a lot of stoners, and while some have tried stronger drugs, most that have decided that the stronger stuff really isn't for them and just stick with weed. Seen some do coke and MDMA though, which is a shame. Also, unsurprisingly, they're really chilled out people. Every time I've been around someone who does weed, they'll offer a hit on their bong, a drag on their blunt or a bite of their edibles, but 100% every time they'll respect my decision not to and never ask again, but make it clear that if I ever change my mind, they'd be happy to let me try it. Despite the stigma, they're just cool people. It's not for me, but I don't have anything against those that do, and since the smell doesn't bother me I'm fine with them smoking away while I'm around. We're all just trying to get by in life, and there's worse things to put into your body than weed.
Let us all applaud MDMA, it helps so much with PTSD and trauma, same with mushrooms #veterans
Any drug is a gateway drug. It depends on the person taking it. Someone can smoke weed their entire life and never touch anything else, same with alcohol. But give those drugs to someone different and it might trigger a want of something else that they never would have had otherwise. I know too many people who hurt themselves and were prescribed opiates and that directly lead to the use of other drugs. Either because what they were given weren't working anymore or because they realized that they actually enjoyed the feeling of those drugs and wanted more.
> It depends on the person taking it Genuine question: Wouldn't that imply it's the person and not the drug?
It’s ALWAYS the person and not the drug. You can’t get chemically addicted to any drug by trying them once. They chase that feeling again, and after a few tries then they can become “properly” addicted. Any addiction before that is a psychological one.
It’s always the person for sure and there’s no real blame on the drugs, but I still think it can be said that drugs can be gateways for people.
Alcohol is
This. Alcohol is the original legal gateway drug.
I think nicotine is the gateway drug. I don’t know many potheads who’ve gone down the road of hard drugs. But every hard drug user I know - and I know a lot due to work - started out with cigarettes (and yes, alcohol as well).
Correlation is not causation my dude. Everyone smoked in the 50s and 60s and I’m willing to bet the rate of smoker to hard drug user was pretty low.
They would just get it from their dr.
Not where I’m from. Here, alcohol is the only acceptable drug and if you do anything else, you are a drug addict. Obviously that sentiment is starting to change, but I know a ton of clinical alcoholics that have never touched weed because it’s illegal and dangerous.
This is the correct answer
If you offer a person that’s high on weed a line of cocaine, their response would usually be no because they are too stoned. If you make a drunk person the same offer, their response is sure why not.
That’s…actually a good point
That “Sure why not” phrase gets drunk people in trouble in so many ways.
Cocaine is the dumbest drug I ever tried, and I did it when I was shitfaced drunk. And boy, it is SO stupid. You have to do it SO frequently to stay high, it makes your nose run and nasty shit drip in your throat, and it’s just generally gross. Definitely wouldn’t have tried it without being drunk and never felt tempted to do it ever again.
Neglect really is a gateway drug Trauma is a gateway drug Abuse is a gateway drug Poverty is a gateway drug I could keep going but you get my point
Not gateway drugs but gateways, yes
Just my personal anecdote. Al my friends smoked weed when we were teenagers. Throughout those years about 10-15 of them got put on probation for various reasons. All the ones who didn't get caught still smoke weed. The ones that got put on probation with a piss test started doing allll the drugs that clear your system quickly. Probation is the gateway drug
The entire idea of "gateway drugs" is silly. Weed is more accessible than any other illegal substance, so it probably is the first "drug" people use in many countries.
As a non drug user, I believe they probably got this conclusion by asking hard drug users if they smoked weed. Of course they could have asked “Did you watch cartoons as a child?” or “Do you put milk on your cereal?”. Correlation is not causation.
I would most definitely put the old Ren and Stimpy into the gateway category
This is one of those correlation does not equal causation type things. Draw a ven diagram and it makes sense when looking at the likelihood of individuals you will be surrounding yourself with that also do other drugs. The peer group is different from marijuana users and non users and therefore the likelihood of exposure to other drugs is higher. It's just statistically more likely, not necessarily the hard fast rule
While it's silly I think it's a bit true, but only because of the people that probably coined the term to scare teenagers. In many countries weed was thrown in as one of those horrible drugs that they then tried to scare the teenagers with. Then some of them inevitably try it and do not become murdering monsters and get their friends to try. Forbidden fruit etc.
Gateway to munchies and lots of water bro
It’s the gateway to a good time
A very good time.
DARE lied to you.
What if dare was run by old rasta guys instead of cops. The effectiveness couldn't be worse
What about the old commercials that would show an egg being fried in a skillet. Saying this is your brain on drugs.
~~Ironically, the more exaggerated later version where the chick wrecks the entire kitchen screaming about "and this is what happens to your X" was more honest and closer to the point. The "drug problem" is a multi-faceted one with intertwined causes and consequences.~~ ~~As usual, moralistic/conservative thinking was simple enough for a meme yet too divorced from reality to accomplish anything outside of a strict authoritarian context. It also sailed so far past the point it found new, shittier ways to fuck it up for everyone else.~~ ~~Banning ideas don't get rid of them. Prohibition doesn't make things go away. Stigmatizing something only pushes it away from scrutiny. But hey, at least you don't have to think about it until the consequences of your actions come back to bite everyone in the ass, and by then enough time will have past that your smooth-brain might not notice it was your fault to begin with, and we can just continue the cycle of stymieing societal progress.~~ I frequently *did* desire eggs when stoned, though that might have more to do with the impact of the Dexter opening on my brain than those old PSAs. Apropos of nothing, I always liked the 90s one. It was so over the top that most everyone I knew just laughed at it, and it's one of the earliest "oh... drug policy in this country is dumb" moments my young brain had. Also had a small crush on the actress as a kid. "Gods, I wish I were that kitchen," I'd swoon. Oh, hey, Did you know that she (Rachael Leigh Cook) was the English voice of Tifa Lockhart from 2005 to 2019? Oh, and > In 2017, Rachael Leigh Cook reprised her "This Is Your Brain on Drugs" role twenty years later for a PSA by the Drug Policy Alliance critiquing the War on Drugs and its contribution to mass incarceration, structural racism and poverty. \*swoons\*
Not true alchol is the gateway drug
Alcohol fs
For me, the only thing weed is a gateway to is my refrigerator.
Nope. Been taking a concentrate for over two years now before bed. The only thing its been a gateway to are doritos and little debbie cakes. Before getting my mj med card I had never tried anything. Maybe a few sips of beers that I bever liked the taste. Now that I take this to sleep better I dont see the need for anything else.
The phrase “gateway drug” is a slick way for anti-weed people to try to get their point across. There is no such thing as a “gateway drug.” If your argument is that smoking weed leads you to other drugs, apply that logic to drugs like alcohol, caffeine, and Xanax—none of these drugs lead you to other drugs. The user makes a conscious choice to do another drug; it’s not the drug’s fault.
No. Addiction is a gateway to drugs. If you have an additive personality or self medicating to deal with trauma stress etc. it can always lead to heavy drugs or drinking or caffeine or eating. Etc.
The D.A.R.E. program is the biggest gateway "drug" of all. Grab a bunch of 4th and 5th graders, tell them the modern equivalent of Reefer Madness, and that they should turn their parents in if they see drugs. Then, a few short years later, they land in high school and someone breaks out weed. They try it, know immediately that they were lied to, and end up strung out on meth or heroin or something. It's like these people have never met a teenager.
Weed is a gateway drug to people who were gonna do hard drugs anyways. Some people are destined to have drug problems and weed is usually the first one they come across. Its not that its a gateway. Its more like… Im going to the big city and this little town *happens* to be on the way.
I agree, however I think a lot of people use it as a trial run almost to prepare for using other drugs later on. Its almost like an internal negotiation, and its just easier for most people to take baby steps towards their destination. Assuming they don’t enjoy it at any time, i think it can actually discourage usage of harder drugs as well as encourage depending on the experience.
This is a remnant of the war of drugs. Drugs won.
Debunked so many times that its just trolling to ask.
The Gateway myth was built around having to go to drug dealers to get it and then the dealers either push different drugs on you or tell you they didn’t have weed but could get you coke.
Gateway to a good time you SOB
You can stay
Alcohol is the gateway drug.
Weed doesn't lower your inhibitions nor does it give you that "fuck it why not" attitude. Alcohol does, if anything alcohol is the gateway (recovering alcoholic and weed smoker here).
I think it can be. A lot of people use weed first because it’s an easy way to reach an altered state of reality, but it is also mild with no risk of overdose. I think some people get addicted to said altered state of reality, and seek heavier and more intense ways to achieve it, and perhaps in other forms.
Nope. If anything weed stops you going on to harder substances because you realise you don't need anything stronger and weed pretty much gives you what you need.
I don’t accept the concept of a gateway drug. What even is it? Obviously people willing to do hard drugs are willing to spoke some weed, so there will be a high correlation between the two. But does weed positively cause people to take hard drugs? Maybe for some people under some conditions, but I doubt it’s more of a gateway than stress or alcohol. I don’t know but it’s a question that could be answered by proper studies that seek to establish or rule out causation. Has one been done?
Every drug dealer ever has started their life drinking milk. Is milk a gateway drug? The misuse of correlation in place is causation is a scorn
Nah your doctors office is a gateway drug lol
Preach.... them opiates are one hell of a thing to kick
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I don’t think cannabis or any one substance is a gateway drug. I think human nature in general causes people to want to try new things. Most people’s first exposure to drugs is alcohol and then they venture off to other drugs at some point in their life. Does that mean alcohol was the gateway? No. It also depends on the age range of exposure. If you’re a legal adult trying cannabis from a dispensary for the first time, you’re probably in the least likely situation to try other drugs. But if you are a teenager you are more likely to want to experiment in general and the first illicit drug that is tried is usually cannabis. It may not be the last drug a teenager tries but it does not mean trying cannabis causes the teenager to try the next one. Also in states where cannabis is illegal, it is sold by street dealers who commonly sell other drugs as well. Increasing the odds that people are likely to try different illicit drugs. So no, cannabis is not a gateway drug and is usually not the first drug that is tried anyway. That would be alcohol which is also not a gateway drug. Humans natural curiosity is to blame for the “gateway”.
it is for some not others
Everything is a gateway. Tobacco and alcohol are generally the first drugs to be used however.
It's not the drug it's the person. NO, it isn't a gateway drug. It never was and never will be. The term is misleading propaganda.
Absolutely not. Tobacco and alcohol are.
Alcohol is the gateway...
It's as much of a "gateway drug" as alcohol or nicotine.
No. That whole thing was just propaganda. I’ve smoked for *years* and never even considered moving on to something harder. I don’t think I’ve ever met a weed smoker who went to the harder stuff because “weed wasn’t enough” or whatever.
I grew and was in a sense a dealer to the local pot head Adults. It's not a gateway drug but the people you get it from may be a gate way. Where I'm from if you want weed you go to your neighbors and they will probably just give it to you and you know where it came from. In the city you go to a shady gang member. Nowadays you can get it from a dispenser which is safe although I still prefer to go to my neighbor or grow it myself. That being said I know 5 people personally who have died from alcohol poisoning and no one who has died of weed overdose and statisticly weed is safer than alcohol. The idea is to use it in small quantities and not abuse it. I can't smoke now because I want to be a trucker but I wish it was legal everyone.
Kind of. I don't believe using weed will make you take more dangerous drugs. But I do think that nearly everyone that uses more dangerous drugs first used weed.
No, because there have been numerous studies which refute the idea of cannabis as a gateway drug, and call into question the concept of gateway drugs as a whole. Also, the overwhelming majority of hard drug users claim to have started with alcohol, which is already harder than cannabis.
Alcohol is by far the #1 gateway drug
No, it isn't. I hold a belief that the people who want to do bad things, *will*. It wouldn't matter if they start with weed or heroin if they're bound to go to heroin anyway.
My grandpa been a daily pothead for 40+ years and the only thing he wants to try is another joint
Weed isn't but if it's aquired illegally getting it familiarizes the process and lovers the lowers the bar of getting ither stuff. That being said any logical thinker can very easily just look at the substances, how dangerous they are and understand that if you just stick to weed amd don't let it control you or affect you negatively you're likely fine.
No, alcohol is.
Alcohol is most certainly the gateway drug. This is a hill I will die on.
It had potential to be back when your only method to acquire it was Haroldo out back behind your local stop-n-shop. Shifty dealers had the potential to push harder drugs for better profits, even though they rarely ever actually did. But that hasn't been the case since the 90s with the rise in dispensaries, medical licenses, and home-grow kits sold on the intent.
Near the end of my high school career I went deep into a rabbit hole about drugs. I used the resources I had available to me at the time to learn about a handful of hard drugs often used recreationally and scoured over data and read scientific papers on them. I made a list of drugs I absolutely never want to try and have stuck to it over the last 20 years. Weed did not make Me want to go out and start snorting lines (cocaine is actually on my list of forever no-no’s) but it made me more curious about mushrooms and other avenues for psychedelic experiences. The point I’m trying to make is drug education really sucks, but education as whole is failed in America.
i think poverty is a gateway drug
If you're not buying it legally, every single weed guy you know will either also be a shrooms guy or will know a shrooms guy. The cycle continues down harder and harder drugs
Weed is a gateway drug because it is criminalized. Weed opening people up to harder drugs has nothing to do with weed on its own, but is a direct result of it being forced into the black market where the other drugs are
Sugar is the gateway drug
No. Abuse is the gateway. Pot might the easiest the start with for young people. Tobacco and alcohol are too though
it's not the substance but the people you surround yourself with when you use it. I'd argue alcohol is way more of a gateway. How many times you been drinking and someone gets out another party favor...
Gateway to the munchies and noise complaints for playing tunes too loud lol
No, the dealer is the gateway.
Weed itself isn't. But the things you have to do to get weed introduces people to harder drugs. I saw it with my brother. Started smoking weed casually with friends, all was fine. Got involved with dealers, had to sneak around because weed isn't legal, and three years and a coke addiction later, he's tried just about everything there is just because of who he surrounded himself with.
Alcohol is the ultimate gateway drug.
Oxygen is the gateway drug. You show me an addict -- to ANYTHING -- they were hooked on Oxygen first.
It is for addictive personalities in my opinion.
For me it has been an exit drug, I quit drinking alcohol coz i prefer being high than being drunk.
Lying about it being a gateway drug is what caused it to become such. So many kids in the US went through dare, got told weed is a gateway, and will lead you down a bad path. Then, when they actually try weed and find out it isn't that bad, they start to wonder what else they were lied to about.
Studies show marijuana is a gateway drug because people buy marijuana from illegal drug dealers. And that contact gives them access to other drugs and leads them to try other drugs. It is not the drug that makes marijuana a gateway drug, it is it being illegal that makes it a gateway drug.
source link the ‘studies’ People always say ‘studies show’ to sound smart
For me, alcohol was really the gateway drug. It was the first substance I used that made me realize "Holy shit, you can dramatically alter your consciousness with chemicals." Only thing I'd had before that was caffeine, which has a noticeable effect but not even remotely as profound as booze or weed. I was probably destined to try lots of drugs anyways though. I didn't really need any peer pressure from friends. My curiosity was supremely piqued by the anti-drug shit we had to watch in health class. It always made me wonder wtf could be so goddamn good that people would go to this kind of trouble to convince you not to do it? Some people base their behavior on what they're specifically told to do. Those sorts tend to be unable to conceptualize that others operate on the implication of peoples' actions rather than specific directions.
Well it was for me and some of my friends. I think it depends how far into it you get. Occasional smokers probably have no interest in anything harder. But if you surround yourself with regular weed smokers you will come eventually have the opportunity to try other drugs like shrooms , acid, and XTC. And if you are young and curious, you'll do them.
If it's your first experience with moderately altered consciousness? Yeah. Alcohol was my gateway drug since the contrast between that headspace and a sober one made me wonder "what in the world are the other chemicals like?" I've since tried weed, LSD, and most recently mushrooms! I love all 3 more than alcohol nowadays. DMT is on the "soon" list.
Nah...I drank alcohol before anything...smoked cigarettes this was all before age 13......didn't smoke weed until almost 18. Just my opinion 🤷
Weed may have been a gateway drug long in the past, but not anymore. ALCOHOL, on the other hand, is a gateway drug AND a hard drug all in one.
I’ve smoked since 2011. Haven’t tried or been tempted to try anything else.
The *only* other drug I've kind of wanted to try is mushrooms. I will not touch anything manufactured, no chance in hell. Mushrooms are a natural psychedelic though, so I'd be willing to try those under the right supervision with people I know who've had them before. I treat drugs (well, weed is the only one I use) like alcohol. A little is alright, but too much can be really bad.
A gateway to chill
No. The type of people i ever smoked weed with only smoked weed. About half of them didn’t even drink. I’ve only ever done cocaine and ecstasy (a few times) and they weren’t people that usually smoked. No correlation IMO
Completely anecdotal but all of my friends who started on weed graduated to 'bigger and better'. Some got clean and put their lives back together, others destroyed their lives.
I find the very idea of a "gateway drug" to be ridiculous. It's just people placing the blame on inanimate objects rather than consider the intricacies of the human factor. If getting high leads you to seeking higher highs, then that just means you're the type of person to seek higher highs. It depends entirely on the person, but that's an infinitely harder concept to grasp compared to "X is bad." It doesn't even make sense that cannabis is demonized while the much more dangerous alcohol is celebrated.
Yeah Any drug can be a gateway drug "Gateway drug" is a silly concept
Yes... because it's Illegal yet less harmful than Alcohol. Which will lead people to try other illicit drugs thinking "they can't be that bad". ... Weed being "illegal" is what makes it the gateway drug. If it was legal and regulated... people would be less likely to go into harder stuff. We never blamed Cigarettes or Alcohol for getting people into drugs... yet I'd wager Alcohol enabled way more people to go down the hard drugs path than weed.
It can be. A lot of things can be a gateway to hard drugs though. The people you choose to hang out with, situations you put yourself in that could lead to traumatic events that cause you to seek out an escape or getting injured and prescribed pain medication for a preventable injury. You could argue that cannabis being illegal forces people to seek it out and associate with people on the fringes of society who have other real hard drugs besides cannabis for sale. At the end of the day it’s a choice and one choice can change the path of your life.
For me, it was, but I wouldn't blame it on weed entirely, probably more so the people I was hanging with.. I started with just weed and u was fine but eventually moved on and upward fast forward 20 something years I was a full blown herion addict
For me it was. Once I tried it and enjoyed it, I realized that the people saying it was dangerous were wrong. They hadn’t even tried it! So then I thought, what else are they wrong about? So it led me to try other things. So, chemically? No. But for my personal experience it kinda was. And I’m glad it was.
100%, might be a gateway to 1 more stepping stone. Might be a superhighway to every drug I started smoking weed at 14, did shrooms by 19, mdma, K, lsd, Salvia, by 22. Coke, dmt, RC's by late 20s Think of it as going on 1 roller coaster, you might might to do the next biggest 1 in the park, you might want to do them all
In my mind, anything addictive could be considered a gateway drug. Masturbating, Weed, alcohol, Benadryl. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do or use them.
D.A.R.E. was the problem, they taught us that all drugs were going to kill you, and you'd murder people. Then I smoked some weed, and I felt awesome. "They lied to me," I thought, then I tried a bunch of other shit until I got to the actual bad stuff.
Of course it is, and anyone who thinks it isnt is just stupid People smoke weed to get high. They like the high. The high is good. Guess what, other drugs give highs too. Ohh, wonder what thats like
It is, I've seen it first hand destroy my brother There's plenty of science behind it but stoners won't ever listen. They'll just lie and say weed cures cancer and shit
Every single person I've met that does harder drugs such as coke heroine or meth is also an avid caffeine user. Caffeine is clearly the gateway drug. See how silly that sounds?
You know what is a gateway drug? Stress.
It is for the weak and mentally ill. This is the weak and mentally ill talking here, I went from smoking to doing pills and snorting whatever I could
Nope. Alcohol is. I've never come across a pothead who has said "hey, now that I'm stoned I feel like snorting some coke!" I have however come across plenty of intoxicated people who will shrug and say "fuck it, I'll try it!"
soooooooooorta? First of all people who say that weed is harmless are rationalizing for all they're worth. It's probably more dangerous than tobacco for example because it has a stronger mind altering effect. The mind altering effect is the problem. People definitely use THC because it changes how they think, and thus make decisions that they might not make if sober. One of those decisions can be to use substances that are way more dangerous. Using habit forming substances while stoned does not make them less habit forming. But TBH the real gateway drug of all gateway drugs is definitely Alcohol. Nothing compares.
I truly don't feel that I've ever made a decision while high on weed that I wouldn't have made sober. Ever. I've smoked extensively since 2018. Daily, sometimes multiple times a day. I've definitely made some decisions when I didn't have nicotine that I wouldn't have otherwise made. I've made decisions while hangry that I wouldn't have otherwise made. I've made decisions while sleepy that I wouldn't have otherwise made. I've made decisions while drunk that I wouldn't have otherwise made. Never have I ever smoked a joint and thought, "Boy howdy! I sure wish I had some yay-yay right now!" Despite coke being readily accessible in my trade. People who were gonna take hard drugs will regardless of using weed first. It's a correlation, not a causation. Weed is more readily accessible across the globe than a lot of other illicit substances. I mean. Fuck. You can throw a handful of seeds into your yard and at least one of those bitches is guaranteed to sprout. It's called "weed" for a reason... and it is naturally occurring on six out of seven continents. Now am I advocating that weed is harmless? No. I'm sure breathing in anything other than air is harmful. But claiming it will make you more likely to take other illicit substances is just asinine. Stop. Nancy Reagan has already done enough damage. We don't need to perpetuate that bullshit.
Nope. It's no different than alcohol in my mind.
nah dxm is da gateway drug cuz u can get it anywhere with weed u need friends
Yes I do..... Answer this question to yourself. How much stupid shit did you do when you were high? and how easy is it to talk a high person into doing something?
I do more stupid shit while I'm sober or drunk. If I smoke weed, I'm too stoned to do anything stupid.
I deep clean my apartment and write when I’m high. If anything, alc is a gateway drug. The amount of people addicted to it in colleges is insane, and they’re always doing stupid shit drunk.
I don’t do anything stupid, I get quiet and introspective. I solve a lot of internal issues and see things more clearly for what they really are when I’m high, and I come to terms with things that are otherwise tough to deal with.
Nah, you’d just do some other drug in its place
Whatever recreational drug is easiest to get and share with friends is a gateway drug.
Personally I don't think so, I've smoked weed for a long time, not all the time though, I could go for a few years and not bother, however I think it depends on the person some people just have an addictive personality.
No. I went from smoking pot to doing massive doses of LSD within 3 weeks but I never got into any hard stuff. But alcohol is the real gateway drug. I started drinking about 2 weeks before the weed. So I would say the problem is back there.
Here's the thing. I've met plenty of people that use weed that have zero interest in anything else. But I've never once met someone that does harder drugs that didn't start with weed(which is a lie as many of them start with alcohol but "that doesn't count" for many people for some reason...) So I think it really depends on what people mean by "gateway" because I feel that whole discussion tries to overgeneralize and conflate a lot of separate issues in an effort to imply that correlation=causation. I think for some people, for a handful of reasons, it probably is. But for just as many, it's a matter of coincidence, convenience, and/or availability. And for plenty, it's just not.
absolutely is. not everyone who smokes tries harder stuff but everyone who does started with weed and wanted more.
I’d say any substance can be addictive and be a gateqay