[Sparta]

Got the flame suit on so flame away.

[breakem]

but it does lead to hot fudge sundaes

[Jonathon Spectre]

In a related story, 2 + 2 = 4.

[Argus]

I can't remember what it leads to.

[wideawake]

Every pot smoker I knew in college and the post-college years experimented with harder drugs. Everyone I've ever met who had a problem with hard drugs was also a potsmoker.

Conversely, I and the other nonpotsmokers I know haven't had any experience, let alone difficulties, with hard drugs.

Reality check - how many people do you know who have made this statement: "I'll do smack and blow, but I'll never touch that demon weed!"

[trebb]

If this report is right, I was an anomaly - it's been over 15 years since I did drugs, but MJ got me over the initial fear of the unknown. After that, it was a steady progression up to the "bigger/better" stuff. It may not cause hard drug use, but it definitely paves the way...

[Kerberos]

Old news. The gateway myth was disproved many years ago but for some reason it keeps popping up from time to time, as though it is some newfound evidence. Guess it is just another way to get funding for doing research, and then writing about the same old stuff..

[jmc813]

WOD Ping

[jmc813]

I tried the *Wod_list in the to field. Could you tell me if this showed up OK?

[Tony Niar Brain]

-- If X smokes weed, then X will do harder drugs later in life.

-- If X does not do harder drugs later in life, X does not smoke weed.

These are logically equivalent statements; either both are true or both are false. If you say marijuana is a gateway drug, you are also saying that casual users do not exist. That is simply not so.

[Illbay]

Psst: Pot leads to hard drug use.

Pass it on.

[What Is Ain't]

"Something will start at the Republican National Committee, inside the building, and it will explode the next day on the right-wing talk-show network and on Fox News and in the newspapers that play this game," ---- Al Gore

Replace RNC with Rand and Fox News with Reuters.

[authordavidtoy]

The pot dilemna could be settled by one "joint" session of congress.

[galt-jw]

hey, facts don't matter here. druggie (sarcasm).

[TopQuark]

I hope the study itself is a bit better than the article. I do not hold my breath, however, given the quotation and conclusions.

Countering a basic principle of American anti-drug policies, an independent U.S. study concluded on Monday that marijuana use does not lead teenagers to experiment with hard drugs like heroin or cocaine.

Nobody said that people progress to cocaine while they are still teenagers.

By focusing on teenagers, the study cannot generalize to other populations, such as that of 20-30 year-olds, for instance. This is called a threat to external validity.

"Marijuana is not a gateway drug. It's just the first thing kids often come across."

What kind of logic is that? It's like saying, "The engine of a car is not a simple mechanism. It's just something people use to get to work." The second sentence has nothing to do with the first.

Does logic always fail this author or only when he reports his results?

Morral said 50 percent of U.S. teenagers had access to marijuana by the age of 16, while the majority had no exposure to cocaine, heroin or hallucinogens until they were 20.

There you go: so there is such thing as time after all. Another blunder:

"To a certain extent we are diverting resources away from hard drug problems," he said. "Spending money on marijuana control may not be having downstream consequences on the use of hard drugs."

But his study is cross-sectional rather than longitudinal; he did not even gather evidence that may support or contradict this assertion.

People like this author would not survive a year in engineering or science. But in "social sciences," such people even get outside funding. It is they who report to you on even numbered years that coffee is bad for you and, respectively, on odd-numbered years that it is harmless.

[uncbob]

Beer does lead to hard drugs and harder booze
Bet all drug addicts started with beer when teenagers

[uncbob]

An adict is an addict is an addict
Heroin or coke addicts would eventually be alcoholics if they weren't on the other stuff

[uncbob]

Funny thing when the threads on Alcohol fueled riots on college campuses, druken DEA agents shooting people, traffic death statistics on druken drivers, booze fueled riots after sports victories etc etc are posted.
None of the the War on Drug warriors ever post on those threads

[welfareworker]

Regardless of whether marijuana is a 'gateway' drug or not, its almost certainly going to be legalized in the not so distant future

Why? The government's insatiable need for money. Only so much can be extracted from legalized gambling, the tobacco settlement cash will dry up when MO et.al. go into bankruptcy under the crushing burden of other verdicts against them. I just can't see the government passing up on this revenue stream for much longer.

[F16Fighter]

One day, a young Keith Richards thought he'd "try" a puff of a marijuana cigarette...

[Rudder]

From the article: Researchers say predisposition to drug use has been linked to genetic factors and one's environment, including family dynamics and the availability of drugs in the neighborhood.

Andrew Weil, M.D. peformed a rather exhaustive study of cultural patterns in drug use. He found that, throughout history, all cultures (except one) regularly used intoxicants in one form or another. The notable exception was Eskimos, who now use alcohol since it was introduced to them by explorers to the north pole.

The misleading statement from the article seems to me to be a token excercise in political correctness of the pseudoscience variety. They conclude it's either genetic or environment...duh!