Posted on 08/18/2005 5:15:05 PM PDT by neverdem
Patients arrive broke, busted or abandoned at our methadone clinic in a raw section of Northeast Washington. They are opiate addicts, primarily dependent on heroin, though some take vast doses of street-bought painkillers like OxyContin.
Drinking the pink methadone solution every day prevents withdrawal sickness.
About half of our patients have also spent years on crack or alcohol. Not all have stopped, but at least they have cut back. We see almost no methamphetamine users, but that is a simple accident of geography - the corrosive drug hasn't yet reached epidemic proportions in this part of the country.
The personal ravages of hard-core addiction are enormous, and they translate into vast social costs - crime, violence, incarceration, homelessness, unemployment, hepatitis C, H.I.V./AIDS.
Such an immense burden makes me wonder about the wisdom of federal priorities.
Why is marijuana, of all drugs, the main target of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy?
Answer: the gateway theory of addiction. Start with marijuana, the idea is, and progress to methamphetamine or heroin or cocaine.
To me, the "gateway" assumption, which took root in the 1950's, has a nostalgic, "Reefer Madness" feel. But it is still driving federal policy. The drug czar's office made that clear last month in response to a call from the National Association of Counties "to put the same kind of emphasis on methamphetamine abuse as they have on marijuana." The association had just announced that its 500 members were reeling from methamphetamine-related crime, incarceration and child-neglect.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy defended its prioritization. Addressing "early marijuana use is an effective way of heading off and preventing subsequent movement into other drug use," said a spokesman for the drug czar on National Public Radio.
Is this true? Is the gateway argument a valid justification...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The number one gateway drug is alcohol. There isn't a single solitary addict alive whose first intoxicating experience wasn't alcohol, due to its ease of acquisition.
Legalize all drugs, and then instead of wasting billions on incarcerating and going after users, we can spend that money on helping rehabilitate users. You've gotten rid of income for many organized crime rings, freed up jail space for criminals, and produced new income from taxes on drugs for the government, all in one fell swoop.
"Marijuana is the fuse, LSD is the bomb!"
Re-legalize it now!
Ping. You might like to see this article.
Who told you this?
I grew up in the 60s drug culture, did virtually every drug there is including herion and cocaine as did most of my friends.
Marijuana is DEFINITELY the main gateway drug to the rest.
I've known many people who drink but NEVER would touch illegal drugs.
I can't think of a single person I've know who smoked pot and refused to touch ANY other illegal drug.
Good plan. Use WOD personnel in the WOT and border security.
As far as I have read on the subject, marijuana has never directly caused the death of anyone. The FDA has approved so many lethal prescription medications that I am amazed that no one ever gets charged with a crime for these deaths. Marijuana has been being used by mankind for every imaginable purpose for untold thousands of years and as a result one would think that after such a long "test" period that the Federal Government would throw in the towel and return nature's natural gift of a drug to WE THE PEOPLE!
In the past six months, I have known two people who have OD'd (and died) from legally prescribed prescription drugs. While that is above average, I have NEVER in my entire life known anyone who died of a marijuana overdose.
I believe the reason that statistics can be skewed to make it appear that addicts move from marijuana to harder drugs is precisely because it is illegal.
People buying pot have to buy from hardcore criminals who find it more profitable to get their customers hooked on drugs which are highly addictive than a relatively harmless drug like marijuana.
More people have died from cigarettes, alchohol & fast food than have ever died from marijuana.
Many people go from weed to harder drugs because they are available from the same source.
Legalize pot and you seperate it from the harder stuff and the sleezy underbelly of society where drugs thrive.
Some of the hardest stuff out there is over the counter.
I've smoked for many years and never did any of the other stuff. Nice to meet you.
Marijuana is suspected to increase the risk of heart-attacks. I have know pot smokers who died young from heart attacks.
And the habitual pot smokers who haven't died just have lives that are go-nowhere zeros.
I love pot and smoked it for 20 years. But it does waste people's lives and definitely contributes to mental and emotional imbalances as well.
Even if believe you are telling the truth you are definitely the exception to the rule.
If that was the case, the numbers of hard drug users would be nearly the same as the number of marijuana users.
Not necessarily. Natural selection keeps the numbers down.
So anyone who tries pot will eventually go on to harder drugs, except the ones who die first?
Yes. Except the ones who die after.
How long does it take this gateway effect to kick in? There seems to be a lot of people in their 40's and 50's who first tried it in their early teens, and are still doing it occasionally. Either they haven't gotten around to the hard drug use yet, or they're surviving it surprisingly well.
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