As a teenager and young man, I smoked, grew and sold copious amounts of marijuana. I first smoked weed at age 12 on a public school bus in 1972. I had no idea that first time I got high that I was preparing to go down a long road of chronic use, numerous LSD, mushroom, and mescaline trips, shooting crank and heroin, and serious alcohol abuse, culminating in me facing prison at age 27. I cried out to God in a jail cell, put my trust in Him, and have a life today I never dreamed of, clean since October 20, 1986. That being said, marijuana is a gateway drug. My conservative logic tells me that it should be legislated on a state by state basis, but my heart tells me it’s a slippery slope. My concern is will it end with marijuana, or is cocaine or heroin next?
Enough with the Hamlet. Do you support the Tenth Amendment on this issue or not?
Check out my comment towards the end of this thread, I am 100% sure my solution will work.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2962365/posts
The gateway claim is nonsense - research shows that the correlation between earlier marijuana use and later use of other drugs can be explained by a "common-factor" model, that is, a third factor that causes both results, such as individuals' opportunities and unique propensities to use drugs, or mor broadly a social or psychological predisposition towards anti-social behaviour. (http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB6010/index1.html, http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hors253.pdf)
Also note that the same sort of correlation between earlier marijuana and later harder drugs also exists between earlier alcohol and tobacco and later illegal drugs - so if marijuana is a "gateway" so are alcohol and tobacco.