[acidulousfemme]

"When kids get started on weed and migrate upward to other drugs, it violates everyone's rights. So we just won't make another mind altering drug legal. Sorry." The gateway drug argument is tired and asinine. If I go the grocery store to buy milk and find cookies, does that make milk the gateway substance to the world of fatty sweets I am about to indulge in? Again, marijuana and cocaine are available in a similarly illegal and unsafe atmosphere. Also, if a child is told all his life how horrible marijuana is, then tries it and sees how benign it really is, he might conclude that people were lying about cocaine or heroin as well.

[KSCITYBOY]

A pot troll, lib troll? Who really cares.

[Don Myers]

Alcohol & Drugs- Youth At Risk

PARTS San Diego 1999

Gateway Drugs

For many teens, a progression towards using increasingly dangerous substances starts with cigarettes and alcohol, moves to marijuana and then on to other illicit drugs. When teens start to use nicotine, alcohol and marijuana, no one can predict who will go on to use other illicit drugs. What can be predicted is that , for those teens that do use these dangerous substances, there is a much greater likelihood that they will go on to use other illicit drugs.

Two important conclusions came out of this work:

The earlier a teen starts using cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana, the greater the likelihood that the teen will use other illicit drugs.

The more frequently a teen uses cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana, the greater the likelihood that the teen will use other drugs.

In general, this report found that teens who used these three substances were over 30% more likely to use other illicit drugs as compared to teens that report using none of these substances. For these reasons, alcohol, nicotine and marijuana are referred to as gateway drugs to other illicit drug use.

URL: http://www.teendrughelp.org/Gateway%20Drugs.htm