[Know your rights]

Over-stimulation of these receptors through exposure to cannabis may alter these cells so that the brain either feels intensely rewarded by subsequent heroin exposure, or needs an ever-increasing dose to feel the same pleasure — both of which could lead to addiction.

So any drug is a gateway to any other drug, including alcohol and tobacco.

She adds that two other drugs that also stimulate opioid cells, and could therefore also feasibly cause a gateway effect, are nicotine and alcohol. "If we turned back the clock with the knowledge we have now, these two drugs would never have been legalized," Hurd says.

"Gateway" or not, Prohibition was a ringing failure ... as is the war on drugs.

[neverdem]

"If we turned back the clock with the knowledge we have now, these two drugs would never have been legalized," Hurd says.

I doubt that, at least about alcohol. Smarter governments figured out taxation schemes.

Dave Alexander, owner and operator of the Brickskeller in downtown Washington, D.C., argues that "beer is probably the reason for civilization."