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One of the worst aspects of the "Reefer Madness" meme is loss of trust in authority figures among young people who try smoking rope and find out that none of it is true. It's been 50 years since I even smelled marijuana smoke, but I still remember how theaters in Cambridge ran the Reefer Madness movie for us to laugh at.

Was it a "gateway drug"? Well just about everybody I knew back then smoked, but in the ten+ years I lived in Cambridge I never even met a smack user, despite being a semi-pro musician. Acid, yeah. Maybe a few tried speed, but the vast majority never did. Worst long-term effect was that it seemed to encourage some people to become slackers.