So are you saying that pot is a gateway drug? Or that the dealers have all the influence on these kids?
LSD made a big comeback in the 1990s. Different things have different results. Someone that wants a steak isn't going to be satisfied by chicken nuggets.
There will still be drug crime, smuggling, turf war, and juvenile abuse.
Even legal but controlled (by prescription) drugs like zanex are abused nationally.
I think all drugs are gateway drugs, including cigarettes and alcohol. If a teenagers hangs out with the rough kids who smoke and drink he's going to be exposed to all the other stuff too. And if you look at the statistics young people who smoke and drink are many more times likely to use a drug like cocaine than straight laced kids who won't even drink or smoke a cigarette. I don't know that using one drug necessarily makes you want to use another. I don't think there is any physical property of marijuana that makes it such that people who use marijuana want to stick needles in their arms or anything like that. But if people use intoxicants, especially young people, they're going to be exposed to other intoxicants and that increases the chance they'll use these substances.
Some people are just inclined to use intoxicants though and some aren't. Some are a lot more inclined to get high than others. It may be that they are miserable people with deep psychological issues who are self medicating. It may be that they just have a wild reckless streak. Maybe they are just really curious types who want to experience everything. There are all sorts of reasons why people might be inclined to get high, but a lot of people are so inclined some percentage of them will take just about anything.
“Or that the dealers have all the influence on these kids?”
Sure dealers have influence over kids. Most kids are probably getting their drugs from other kids though who are sometimes dealers but often just other kids who party whop either got their drugs from another kid who parties or maybe a dealer.I don't think drugs are actually “pushed” on people very much, even teens. Those that do drugs in most every case want to do drugs and will actively seek them out or will jump on any opportunity that comes along. It is not so much that teens are influenced to do drugs by those who sell them, it's just that a lot of kids are on that trajectory and quite a few of them will take whatever they can get. Most who use drugs just smoke marijuana. More marijuana is consumed in this country than all other illegal drugs combined. The other drugs flow through the same channels as marijuana though and because of that kids who use marijuana are far more likely to be exposed to other more dangerous illegal drugs than a kid who only drinks alcohol. Teens don't tend to get their alcohol from drug dealers.
“LSD made a big comeback in the 1990s. Different things have different results. Someone that wants a steak isn't going to be satisfied by chicken nuggets.”
I'm not really sure what you are saying here. LSD is is actually way down from peak levels. Only a very tiny minority of young people have taken it. It is not a very common drug anymore. The last survey results show less than 3% of all high school seniors having used LSD within the last year and less than 30% say LSD is “fairly easy” or “very easy” to get. The percentages are lower for younger kids. LSD is not really a huge problem for us.
http://monitoringthefuture.org/data/08data/fig08_6.pdf
“There will still be drug crime, smuggling, turf war, and juvenile abuse.”
If we legalized marijuana I don't think we would have much in the way of marijuana related drug crime. Marijuana doesn't lead to much crime. Most of the marijuana drug crime we see today is related to the fact that it is illegal, dealing, turf wars and all that. If it was legal most of that would go away. It would be produced on farms by companies with permits who have regulations they have to follow and sold through licensed shops that only sell to adults. Teens would still get it, but they'd get it like they get their alcohol today and not from drug dealers who sell other drugs. Do teens buy their alcohol from drug dealers who also sell them meth and cocaine and LSD and so on? The criminal element would lose out on many billions of dollars a year. According to the ONDCP Mexican organized crime gross nearly $8.6 billion a year selling marijuana to Americans. They'd lose that and these organizations would become far smaller and less powerful and less of a threat to the Mexican government and to us. That money would instead go to law abiding tax paying Americans who won't need to have bloody turf wars and all that with one another because they can resolve their differences in the courts.
The marijuana industry today is a huge multibillion dollar industry that is entirely unregulated. They can sell to kids. They can sell product treated with toxic chemicals that will hurt our youth who smoke it. They can steal from each other and their customers. They can kill each other over drug selling turf, customers or smuggling routes. It's a mad free-for-all free from any sort of government controls. I think government would have a lot more control over it than they do today if they'd just legalize and regulate marijuana production and sales.
“Even legal but controlled (by prescription) drugs like zanex are abused nationally.”
Yes, as is alcohol, tobacco, junk food, etc. Marijuana is abused too. I think though that most people who want to smoke marijuana already smoke it, especially those most likely to really abuse it. Those very few who are just waiting for marijuana to finally become legal so they can finally smoke it are at least fairly law abiding people with some measure of self control or they'd already be smoking pot. I don't think we'd see just a huge increase in marijuana smokers if we legalized pot. At first there probably would be a honeymoon period where a lot of people just went out and tried it because of the whole novelty of it, but the novelty would soon where off. Pot would still be pot, the stuff the ;losers at the party staring at the TV with the sound turned off are smoking. The stuff the forty year old loser living in his basement with his parents smokes. The stuff that makes an attractive man far less attractive to females when they hear him blabbering on about nothing in his stoned state, if he's not to anxious to talk to them to begin with. There are plenty of good reasons not to smoke pot, and almost all of those reasons will still exist if pot was legal. The laws aren't stopping many from smoking it. The chance that one who smokes it will ever get caught is minuscule, and if he does get caught in most places he'll just get a slap on the wrist. In some countries they basically allow people to smoke marijuana, and in a few they allow people to grow a few plants and even in the case of the Netherlands they allow not only possession but also open marijuana sales from licensed shops. But in most other countries the percentage who smoke it is far lower than the percentage who smoke it here and none have much higher rates of marijuana use than we have. Marijuana is just not something that appeals to most people and that wouldn't change if it was legal.