That and it also shows that:
Marijuana Is Gateway to Hard Drugs in particular.
The Libertarian mantra has been CRUSHED.
GAME, SET, MATCH..., I do expect states to take new looks at recently passed marijuana laws based on this. Only someone involved in drugs will still pursue the issue of legalization.
Being a gateway drug, it DOES harm others.
You don't really think that they're gonna let themselves be bothered by facts, do you?
Perhaps so, Guy, but not across the board. I believe the majority of marijuana users are content with the current compromise arrangement of keeping it out of public sight, and thereby making it de facto legal.
Would you explain to me how the information in this article supports the conclusion that MJ is intrinsically a gateway drug?
All I see is that in twins, the one who used MJ was more likely to have used harder drugs later in life. This is no different than other studies showing the same for the general population, ie, most hard drug users used MJ before hard drugs. IOW, there is nothing new with this study.
Why did one twin use MJ in the first place? It seems to me that whatever caused the twin to use MJ was just as likely to explain the use of harder drugs.
Also, doesn't 33% seem awfully high for later drug abuse in the twin who did not use MJ? That doesn't come close to hard drug use figures I've seen for the general population.
Did this study take into account early use of tobacco or alcohol? If not, why not?
And finally, I'll donate $100 to Free Republic if the author, Andrew Heath, has not received grant money from some some group like NIDA, the DEA, or the drug czar's office on several occasions.
This looks like more of the same old flim-flam.
Eh? You gave me the link to this, I read it, and it doesn't even say this. In fact there seem to be a lot of caveats in the article. One they left out tho - why did the other half of the pair not try pot?
What is a "gateway" drug, anyway? Is it a drug which causes an uncontrollable tendency to waste one's life as a druggie? Should the government protect us from it? Is it the role of government? What form should the protection take? Should we give the government powers specifically forbidden by the constitution in order to deal with this? Considering marijauna, at least, was commonly available at the time of the founding of the US. Why didn't the founders address it then?
Asking the government to make slaves of us all in order to protect us from drug-crazed mania isn't any more credible now than when Anslinger pitched it.
The Libertarian mantra has been CRUSHED.
In your zeal to write something bad about "libertarians," you rushed through the article or didn't even read it. Correct?