This is a marijuana myth that has already been exposed by many scientific research studies. There is a well know book called "Marijuana Myths Marijuana Facts: A Review Of The Scientific Evidence" you can find here.
Strangely enough we are using that text for the basis of our next segment of This Week in Weed, which can be seen in the next episode of "Mastering The System."
The purpose of the segment will be to examine and dispute some well known marijuana myths and facts, like the one you listed here.
Since I don't know if you are a paying member of this site, I'll help you out a little bit.
Here is what the book "Marijuana Myths Marijuana Facts: A Review Of The Scientific Evidence" has to say about your assumption.
"MARIJUANA DOES NOT CAUSE PEOPLE TO USE HARD DRUGS. What the gateway theory presents as a casual explanation is a statistical association between common and uncommon drugs, an association that changes over time as different drugs increase and decrease in prevalence. Marijuana is the most popular illegal drug in the United States today. Therefore, people who have used less popular drugs, such as heroin, cocaine, and LSD, are likely to have also used marijuana. Most marijuana users never use any other illegal drug. Indeed, for the large majority of people, marijuana is a terminus rather than a gateway drug" (Zimmer and Morgan 32).
Of course they base this statement on obscene amounts of data, citing all of the resources. Just to show you how much data they use, the resources list is 68 pages long, while of course your post on marijuana being a gateway drug is based on...well...opinion.
That's cool though man. It seems like most policies in America (including our drug policies) are based on conjecture instead of data, so you're not alone.
Strangely enough we are using that text for the basis of our next segment of This Week in Weed, which can be seen in the next episode of "Mastering The System."
The purpose of the segment will be to examine and dispute some well known marijuana myths and facts, like the one you listed here.
Since I don't know if you are a paying member of this site, I'll help you out a little bit.
Here is what the book "Marijuana Myths Marijuana Facts: A Review Of The Scientific Evidence" has to say about your assumption.
"MARIJUANA DOES NOT CAUSE PEOPLE TO USE HARD DRUGS. What the gateway theory presents as a casual explanation is a statistical association between common and uncommon drugs, an association that changes over time as different drugs increase and decrease in prevalence. Marijuana is the most popular illegal drug in the United States today. Therefore, people who have used less popular drugs, such as heroin, cocaine, and LSD, are likely to have also used marijuana. Most marijuana users never use any other illegal drug. Indeed, for the large majority of people, marijuana is a terminus rather than a gateway drug" (Zimmer and Morgan 32).
Of course they base this statement on obscene amounts of data, citing all of the resources. Just to show you how much data they use, the resources list is 68 pages long, while of course your post on marijuana being a gateway drug is based on...well...opinion.
That's cool though man. It seems like most policies in America (including our drug policies) are based on conjecture instead of data, so you're not alone.
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