PV

you cannot physically overdose off marijuana. fact. look it up.

consumption of marijuana by itself cannot induce death. fact. look it up.

now, alcohol.

you can drink yourself to death, effectively overdosing on alcohol. fact. look it up.

consumption of alcohol by itself can, and very often does, induce death. fact. look it up.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: burton2019</div><div class="ubbcode-body">How has it been confirmed as a "gateway" drug? Are they basing this on facts? </div></div>

Honistly I would have to look up facts to suport (or crush) it

That has been my observation of folks (that I know) that have become pill heads who in the HS/collage days were pot heads (On the other side there were plenty that did not become pill heads)

Sure I am painting with a broud brush but still it is my observation

i am anti-alcohol to the max.

its a gateway drug, for sure, its just not as publicized as a gateway drug.
any substance that induces a change in your mood is therefore known as a "gateway" drug, because it opens the person to the idea of mood enhancement.

thats not the technical definition of a gateway drug i know, but its the way i classify drugs, and i think if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. alcohol and drugs go hand in hand.

and the same ole tired cliche of getting drunk and beating your wife or abusing your kids, that happens. whens the last time a stoner hit anything besides the bong?

I don't think MJ is a gateway drug...I've been around for a good long while..and when i turned 18 til i was about 26 i did all there was to do and nothing felt like MJ...and really I don't think there is anyway possible to overdose on it...that is why I don't put it in the same category as drugs that can kill just by use alone...

They hit the floor quite often

good points biggin

i think pills is now the natural evolution of the drug trade.

in the 60's and 70's, thru the 80's, cocaine was the top, the most widely known, the drug that was used in public service announcements.
get into the early 90's, and its crack. crack kills. crack is the worst drug in the world because of its addictive tendancies. footnote, ive smoked crack, more than once, and its not super crazy addictive, im not a crackhead now, but i can see why its soo addictive.

mid 90's thru the 00-heroin. people finally found out that heroin was a problem for all to worry about, not just vietnam vets who were hooked on it or street junkies who die in the street every day.

now, its prescription drugs-oxycontin, all the faucets of morphine abuse, fentyntl, and the benzo's like xanax, valium, ativan, etc.. these aint your grandma's quaaludes and aspirin.

in the future, its gonna be research chemcials- 2ce-i, etc.., drugs like mdma, that havent been marketed to the whole public, but its a whole underground scene now, and will become the next drug epidemic.

we cannot stop the pill epidicemt, why not focus on the future?

kids are really smart now, they get high thousands of ways, and are always advancing the drug culture.
try and stay ahead of the trend, you cant stop whats already been started, just try and contain it.

Well here is some links that conferms MJ as a gate-way drug (would like to find more actual STATS but what can you do LOL


Link 1

Here is the part of the artical (There is more on the link but this is the part I was interested in)

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> But a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests these teens are wrong.

The study examined 311 sets of twins, with one twin in each set having smoke marijuana before age 17.

"And what they found is that the twin who began smoking marijuana at a much earlier age had a very high increase in the probability that that twin would go on to use other drugs other than marijuana," says Dr. Robert Margolis, an addiction specialist.

"As for me, it led within about a month period to other drugs," says Kelly Crockett, 18.

Kelly says smoking pot got her closer to people who used hard drugs.

"And it's like, 'Hey, you like the way this made you feel? Try this, you know?' And I was up for it, you know, part of me was like OK, if I say no, you know they won't think I'm cool anymore," she says.

Experts say pot also releases dopamine in the brain, just like harder drugs do.

"So if marijuana triggers the release of dopamine and cocaine triggers the release of dopamine and heroin triggers the release of dopamine, it makes sense that smoking marijuana may be priming the brain, getting the brain ready for these other drugs," Dr. Margolis says.

But experts say many kids - and their parents - think marijuana is virtually harmless.

"Don't just say, 'Oh, it's only marijuana,'" Dr. Margolis says.

Instead, parents should arm themselves with information from credible sources and send a strong message to kids: Marijuana is illegal, unhealthy and could very well be a gateway to other drugs.

"I know that it is, and anyone that thinks that it isn't, it's kind of sad to say this, but wait and find out ... you probably will, you know," Kelly says.

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Link 2

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Is Marijuana a Gateway Drug?
Early initiation of marijuana use was associated with later drug and alcohol abuse.

Many policymakers and theorists believe that marijuana use leads to use of harder drugs. If this supposition is true, efforts to prevent marijuana use and to intervene with marijuana users are crucial. To find evidence to support or refute marijuana's role as a gateway drug, researchers surveyed 311 Australian monozygotic or dizygotic same-sex twins who were discordant for early marijuana use.

Most twins who reported use of other illicit drugs had used marijuana first. Early users of marijuana were more likely than late- and never-users to use other illicit drugs and to meet diagnostic criteria for illicit drug abuse or dependence or for alcohol dependence. In adjusted analyses that considered family, social, and individual factors (including psychiatric disorders, early tobacco use, and early alcohol use), early marijuana use remained significantly associated with higher odds of: sedative, hallucinogen, cocaine/stimulant, or opioid use; marijuana, cocaine/stimulant, or opioid abuse or dependence; any illicit drug abuse or dependence; and alcohol dependence.

Comment: So, does early marijuana use cause later illicit drug use? If the researchers effectively removed genetics and environment from the equation in this twin study, then the answer is yes. But, an editorialist questions whether even identical twins really share the same environment. In any case, regardless of whether the relation is causal, early marijuana use is associated with later drug use. Interventions aimed at risk factors for illicit drug use should target high-risk youth, including early users of marijuana.
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And another

Link 3

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> "Gateway drugs" is a term for drugs that supposedly lead to abuse of other substances. Marijuana, for instance, is considered by some to be a gateway to harder drugs. George Koob, M.D., of the Scripps Research Institute says that studies of long-term exposure to cannabinoids, the active ingredient in marijuana, suggest that addiction to one drug could make a person vulnerable to abuse and addiction to other drugs. Cannabis abuse, he says, appears to activate corticotropin-releasing factor, a brain chemical that increases during periods of stress. Consequently, Koob says, this could "lead to a subtle disruption of brain processes that are then 'primed' for further and easier disruption by other drugs of abuse."



Whether there is such a thing as a gateway drug is still very controversial, however. Critics of the idea note that even if people who use cocaine started with marijuana, it is not clear that the marijuana use caused or encouraged the cocaine use: The person may simply have encountered marijuana first, and/or is the sort of person more inclined than others to experiment with a variety of illegal drugs. Fewer than one percent of marijuana users go on to become cocaine addicts. What is known is that long-term use of marijuana can produce changes in the brain comparable to that seen after long-term use of other major drugs of abuse such as cocaine, heroin, and alcohol.





PET scans show long-term changes in glucose metabolism in the brain of a marijuana abuser, compared to that of a normal brain.




However, there does appear to be a link of some kind between nicotine dependence and alcohol dependence. Whether the link is causal or not is still unclear. Some researchers hypothesize that since alcohol can cause depression, alcoholics may be using nicotine as an anti-depressant. "Most alcohol-dependent people are nicotine-dependent. I don't understand why that association is, but there are a bunch of theories being tested," says Marc Schuckit, M.D., a psychiatrist who teaches at the University of California at San Diego Medical School.

-- Janet Firshein


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By gateway drug, if you mean that doing it makes you want to do bigger and better things...i disagree....if you say it makes ya wanna smoke more...i totally agree But, by the same token...how many drug users started out smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol...even before they ever tried pot?...those 2 are the real GATEWAY drugs.

what if its not marijuana that is the gateway, what if its the change in mood thats the gateway?

so, people who drink alcohol are more likely to do drugs than people who have never drank alcohol, right?

people who've taked narcotics from the doctor are more likely to do other drugs than people whove never had narcotics from the doctor, right?