Puffing is the best medicine

L.A. Times ^ | May 5, 2006 | Lester Grinspoon

[JTN]

Ping

[battlegearboat]

Not a whole lot of discussion going on here.

Actually none.

Must be because it's the weekend.

[Cementjungle]

Puffing is the best medicine

The benefits of MJ are pretty well known. The problem is in finding a way to package it in such a way as to benefit the drug companies. We can't have people growing their own cures in their own back yards, can we? How would the Feds tax that?

[tallhappy]

I have appreciated Grinspoon's publications, eg Psychedelic Drugs Revisited. He and his co-author did a thorough review that was coprehensive and technically sound on a number of levels.

But, as a full fledged advocate of drug use for its own sake he isn't really credible to my mind.

[A CA Guy]

It is poor medicine and there is everything on the market that is superior to hemp medications.

I do know they allow old hippies dying from cancer to mostly smoke it legally as they die, but it isn't of much value as a real drug.

Great as the gateway drug to snare kids though.

[JTN]

Great as the gateway drug to snare kids though.

The best available evidence is that there isn't much of a gateway effect, if there is one at all.

For example, a study by the British government:

It may well be that most hard drug addicts started off as soft drug users, but one cannot conclude from that fact that hard drug use is caused by previous experience of soft drugs. There may be many confounding social and psychological factors which are hard to observe and measure, and which simultaneously contribute to the drive towards both soft and hard drugs. Once an attempt is made to correct statistical estimates for the likely effects of these confounding factors, the implied gateway effects become much smaller.

The analysis, based on recent survey data on nearly 4,000 children and young adults, finds:

 No significant impact of soft drug use on the risk of later involvement with crack and heroin.
 Very little impact of soft drug use on the risk of later involvement in crime.
 A significant but small gateway effect probably exists linking soft drug use to the social drugs ecstasy and cocaine. However, after correcting for the likely effect of underlying unobservable factors, the predicted long-run consequence of even a complete removal of soft drugs from the scene would only be a one-third cut in the prevalence of ecstasy and cocaine.

The policy implications of gateway effects are not straightforward. Even if it is true that soft drug use increases the risk of later involvement in hard drugs and crime, this does not automatically justify the adoption of a strict policy on soft drugs. By linking soft and hard drugs under the same banner of illegality, a strict policy stance may have the perverse effect of amplifying the gateway effect and increasing the prevalence of hard drugs in the long run. Before translating empirical findings on the size of gateway effects into policy prescriptions, one must have a clear idea of how the gateway effect arises.

In any case, gateway effects are probably too small to be a major factor in the design of anti-drug policy.

[Hardastarboard]

The biggest gateway drug, without question, is alcohol. And it's cheap, socially acceptable, easily obtainable, potent and consistent.

[RandallFlagg]

Just don't get caught smoking tobacco. They'll ticket ya for it on the sidewalks in some places.

[A CA Guy]

As you say there is no gateway effect, tons of kids move from it to other stuff no matter what you say.

If you look at violent offenders in jail, they almost all mixed pot with other crap to get in trouble and often do their murder or other violent crime.

So, you can do all the dancing around the point you like, but it is a proved gateway drug and it is best to just never get started.

There is no productive country I know that has legalized the drugs, all I've heard about regretted it.
We don't need to addict future generations, just let the current crop of Taliban and hippies die out from their drugs and be happy.

[Know your rights]

tons of kids move from it [marijuana] to other stuff

Opposite ... the overwhelming majority of marijuana users do not go on to use harder drugs.

If you look at violent offenders in jail, they almost all mixed pot with other crap

Which tells the rational mind that it was the other crap rather than the pot that was related to their crimes.

[Know your rights]

The biggest gateway drug, without question, is alcohol.

Tobacco is another.

[mugs99]

Great as the gateway drug to snare kids

[A CA Guy]

Opposite ... the overwhelming majority of marijuana users do not go on to use harder drugs.

Pretty much all jailed criminals have nice pot habbits though. Seems to be part of a criminal culture to me.

[A CA Guy]

Sometimes they get it from their pathetic parents.

[mugs99]

Sometimes they get it from their pathetic parents.

Sometimes their parents get it from them.
.

[A CA Guy]

If their parents allow that, that would be child endangerment.

[mugs99]

that would be child endangerment

Just about anything can be child endangerment. Do you think a parent who sends a child to Sunday School is guilty of child endangerment if the child is molested at Sunday School?
.

[tacticalogic]

We don't need to addict future generations, just let the current crop of Taliban and hippies die out from their drugs and be happy.

Just do what you're told and be happy with it. Don't ask questions. Everything will be ok.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Seems to be part of a criminal culture to me.

That's because as a thinker, you're somewhat limited, and have proved it for years now on FR WoD threads.