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 Ratbarf wrote:

It's a gateway drug because it's a drug. People who already said yes to a drug are more likely to say yes to another drug than people who are already convinced that drugs are baaaaad. The 'Gateway' is about openness to different 'state of consciousness'.

Yes and no, the altered state of concsiousness does play a part in it, but the same could be said for anytime you imbibe alcohol, or don't get enough sleep. The gateway part is that instead of going to the corner store where the person you're buying the product from only wants to sell you some doritos and maybe a can of pop, the drug dealer you bought that weed off of wants to sell you coke, meth, heroin, what have you. When you buy it that's his time to make his pitch for these other drugs, or try and push them on you. The friendly vietnamese fellow behind the counter at the Mac's Milk won't try to turn your cigarette/booze/pot purchase into a chance to upsell his heroin because there's a sale on it this month.

And that is the value of legalisation. We already legally sell and tax narcotics, cigarettes are a narcotic as is alcohol. Cigarettes are even diliberately addictive if we are to believe [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkTk4HKf9XI]Dr Wigands[/youtube] testimony, they are legalised. If there is an altered staste of consciousness thersdhold that leads to hard drugs, its already ingrained in society and taxed by governments to a point where they are major revenue streams. Pots is a bit part player with exception of when a pot dealer offers other stuff on the side.
Consequently legalisation will IMHO may reduce proliferation of hard drugs by putting the illegal weed industry out of business and thus reducing saturation. From that point on pushers will not have an easy gateway, to go to the pusher for the first time will be to get specially drugs that people know will likely feth them up, that will require premediation rather than temptation on their part. Not many people will go out and deliberately want to become a meth user.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Ratbarf wrote:

It's a gateway drug because it's a drug. People who already said yes to a drug are more likely to say yes to another drug than people who are already convinced that drugs are baaaaad. The 'Gateway' is about openness to different 'state of consciousness'.

Yes and no, the altered state of concsiousness does play a part in it, but the same could be said for anytime you imbibe alcohol, or don't get enough sleep. The gateway part is that instead of going to the corner store where the person you're buying the product from only wants to sell you some doritos and maybe a can of pop, the drug dealer you bought that weed off of wants to sell you coke, meth, heroin, what have you. When you buy it that's his time to make his pitch for these other drugs, or try and push them on you. The friendly vietnamese fellow behind the counter at the Mac's Milk won't try to turn your cigarette/booze/pot purchase into a chance to upsell his heroin because there's a sale on it this month.

And that is the value of legalisation. We already legally sell and tax narcotics, cigarettes are a narcotic as is alcohol. Cigarettes are even diliberately addictive if we are to believe [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkTk4HKf9XI]Dr Wigands[/youtube] testimony, they are legalised. If there is an altered staste of consciousness thersdhold that leads to hard drugs, its already ingrained in society and taxed by governments to a point where they are major revenue streams. Pots is a bit part player with exception of when a pot dealer offers other stuff on the side.
Consequently legalisation will IMHO may reduce proliferation of hard drugs by putting the illegal weed industry out of business and thus reducing saturation. From that point on pushers will not have an easy gateway, to go to the pusher for the first time will be to get specially drugs that people know will likely feth them up, that will require premediation rather than temptation on their part. Not many people will go out and deliberately want to become a meth user.

Based on my experiences and observations, I disagree almost entirely. I observed that the gateway wasn't a pusher, but friends at parties, just visiting, or out cruising that were most often the ones to introduce weed and other drugs. I remember at school assmblies, crystals being passed down the row that people would take turns snorting.
Later in my life, when I was at a low financial point, the only place I could afford to live for about 6 months was at a low rent joint that served as a crack house for a couple hundred people. It was in a section of town where there were several such places. While living in that place I got a good chance to observe people that were hard core addicts and talk to them about how they got there.
At least half started out like the kids that went to school with me. They'd have a friend that got them into drugs, usually starting with pot, and then over time getting stronger.
The main points of conversation for these people were about how high or drunk they'd gotten, either years ago or more recently, along with how high or drunk they were going to get, and how good they were or used to be at various things which was obvious to everyone.
When I first moved into that place, everyone thought I was a cop because I neither drank nor did drugs, so no one tried ripping me off, but once they got to know kjme, they would be really open in their conversations about drugs.
I learned a lot from the Mexicans I work with who blame drug users for the violence and killing going on in Mexico, also. They laugh at the people who say legalization will solve the problem and tell me that the drug users don't care about the problem as long as they get a chance to get high.

According to them, it's brown people getting killed by the thousands so people can get their drugs, so who cares?

I suppose, I've never really had a job any where else except a short stint selling books for Borders right after I got out and selling pizzas in high school. So it's just my experience in the working world. And again the career field I'm training for is heavily federally regulated as well.

Relapse wrote:

The main points of conversation for these people were about how high or drunk they'd gotten, either years ago or more recently, along with how high or drunk they were going to get, and how good they were or used to be at various things which was obvious to everyone.

So you went to college?

Relapse wrote:

According to them, it's brown people getting killed by the thousands so people can get their drugs, so who cares?

They are correct.

State rights Vs federal rights: isn't that the sort of thing that causes civil war in America?

If America tears itself apart again, Britain could rule the waves again!

Anyway, I'll stop dreaming and get back on topic. This is probably the most sensible piece of news i've heard in a long time. When you think how many Americans have had their lives ruined just for being caught with a few smokes worth, this has been a long time coming.
This is a seperate argument and not meant to troll, but when you consider that some people are happy to let people carry guns around in America, but not the fruits of nature, It leaves you scratching your head. Go Washington! Yeah!

So for the record actually, I am pro-legalization with the enforcement of strong DUI type laws and the rights of employers to not have to hire any form of drug user/abuser.

By strong DUI type laws I mean HARSH penalties, for booze too not just pot or cocaine.

Overall I think the war on drugs has been a complete failure that's as has been mentioned by several people in here just done the same thing prohibition did. It created demand, and criminal gangs to meet that demand, and so forth till a good portion of Mexico may as well be at war. Legalize. Kick the gangs where it REALLY hurts. Their cash flow.

Wonder how many people are going to flock the WA now when it passes.

For the record when I say harsh penalties for DUI I mean I believe we should bring back flogging.

First incidence of driving under the influence of anything to the point of impairment, loss of license for six months, and ten lashes in a public square.

 Ratbarf wrote:

Yes and no, the altered state of concsiousness does play a part in it, but the same could be said for anytime you imbibe alcohol, or don't get enough sleep. The gateway part is that instead of going to the corner store where the person you're buying the product from only wants to sell you some doritos and maybe a can of pop, the drug dealer you bought that weed off of wants to sell you coke, meth, heroin, what have you. When you buy it that's his time to make his pitch for these other drugs, or try and push them on you. The friendly vietnamese fellow behind the counter at the Mac's Milk won't try to turn your cigarette/booze/pot purchase into a chance to upsell his heroin because there's a sale on it this month.

I've bought drugs for years now, almost a decade. I've dealt with dozens of dealers in different parts of Canada, and never once I've I had a dealer try to push anything on me. The dealer/buyer relationship isn't like that. You say how much, they give it to you, and then there gone. You don't go from craving weed to buying E, or heroin.

Of course, you could go from craving weed to buying hash, but that's mostly the same thing.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
First incidence of driving under the influence of anything to the point of impairment, loss of license for six months, and ten lashes in a public square.

Not quite harsh enough. License should be lost permanently. Isn't that the way of it in some places in Europe? IIRC it was that way in Germany when I was there.

Because brutal punishment has proved so successful in the past.

HEH paying taxes on it is quite brutal....SMOKE ALL YOU WANT!!!!

the color purple wrote:
Because brutal punishment has proved so successful in the past.

Pain is a very successful teaching method.

Find me a peer-reviewed study demonstrating that draconian medieval punishment is more effective at preventing crime, or reducing the rate of repeat offenders, or rehabilitating offenders, and I will buy you a hundred dollars worth of miniatures.

Here's a link to Chap 11 of "Just and Painful" by Professor Graeme Newman

Professor and Associate Dean School of Criminal Justice Nelson A. Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy The University at Albany

http://www.albany.edu/~grn92/jp13.html

Widely published, paper is thoroughly sourced and the man who wrote it has been a consultant to the UN, etc.

The second paragraph is most relevant if you don't like clicking through.

Corporal Punishment Works

In a number of similar experiments corporal punishment has been so successful that some animals have starved themselves to death rather than eat the forbidden food. Most studies conducted by psychologists in their laboraties use electric shock when they wish to administer acute pain to their animal subjects.

It is also of interest that the few laboratory studies of the deterrent effects of isolation (that is, the laboratory analogue of prison) have produced much more inconclusive results than have those using corporal punishment. There is little doubt that, in the experimental conditions of the laboratory, acute pain is a very efficient and lasting suppressor of unwanted behavior, both of the person punished (individual deterrence) and of the person watching the punishment (general deterrence).(1)

This is an amazing observation when one considers that the predominant scientific opinion as to whether it is possible to rehabilitate off enders (that is, do something to them to stop them from committing again) is that nothing works.(2)

Why is this? It is because those who have reviewed the research on punishment as a deterrent have been biased.

I suggest you read the whole thing. It's fascinating.

When it comes down to it PAIN is a natural part of the learning process. Have you ever hurt yourself in the course of doing something new? Touched poison ivy? or a hot stove perhaps? Did you do those things again, no you did not unless you possessed a damage mind. The pain is what taught you that those things were negative. Why we ever chose to ignore a vital evolutionary tool built into the human mind is beyond me.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

When it comes down to it PAIN is a natural part of the learning process. Have you ever hurt yourself in the course of doing something new? Touched poison ivy? or a hot stove perhaps? Did you do those things again, no you did not unless you possessed a damage mind. The pain is what taught you that those things were negative. Why we ever chose to ignore a vital evolutionary tool built into the human mind is beyond me.

Have you ever played football? Or any sport that involves violence?

Contact sports hurt, that's the way of it, but we deal with that pain because it is:

1) Fun to hit people.
2) Fun for other people to watch us hit people.
3) Fun to show off for people of our sexual persuasion.

The point is that physical pain can be overridden by alternative factors.

 dogma wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

When it comes down to it PAIN is a natural part of the learning process. Have you ever hurt yourself in the course of doing something new? Touched poison ivy? or a hot stove perhaps? Did you do those things again, no you did not unless you possessed a damage mind. The pain is what taught you that those things were negative. Why we ever chose to ignore a vital evolutionary tool built into the human mind is beyond me.

Have you ever played football? Or any sport that involves violence?

Contact sports hurt, that's the way of it, but we deal with that pain because it is:

1) Fun to hit people.
2) Fun for other people to watch us hit people.
3) Fun to show off for people of our sexual persuasion.

The point is that physical pain can be overridden by alternative factors.

Martial arts for 14 years, football for four, wrestling for two, etc. Yes pain can be over ridden by other factors but that doesn't change the fact of pain as a teaching mechanism and corporal punishment being effective. Getting tackled on the football field is quite the different circumstance from being punished, it's a very different mind set no? You ever get paddled as a lad? I did, I didn't like it at all and yet I was still getting into the sparring ring learning how to take a punch three nights a week.

You should read the link above, I think you'd be interested at the Professor's conclusions.

When it comes down to it PAIN is a natural part of the learning process. Have you ever hurt yourself in the course of doing something new? Touched poison ivy? or a hot stove perhaps? Did you do those things again, no you did not unless you possessed a damage mind. The pain is what taught you that those things were negative. Why we ever chose to ignore a vital evolutionary tool built into the human mind is beyond me.

Someone's been reading his Heinlein.

I've bought drugs for years now, almost a decade. I've dealt with dozens of dealers in different parts of Canada, and never once I've I had a dealer try to push anything on me. The dealer/buyer relationship isn't like that. You say how much, they give it to you, and then there gone. You don't go from craving weed to buying E, or heroin.

Most of the people who I know who have dabbled in the harder drugs started on weed, and then their drug link, which is usually another friend who possibly sells or provides on the side, asks them if they want to join in on something they've recently procured which has more of an oomph to it. So it's not usually the cliche guy in an alley, but they are still pushers.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

Getting tackled on the football field is quite the different circumstance from being punished, it's a very different mind set no?

I don't agree. Being struck on a football field involves the failure to avoid said strike, you are punished by the hit. Rationally you would stop playing, but you don't; because external reasons compel you to do otherwise.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

You should read the link above, I think you'd be interested at the Professor's conclusions.

Read it, lots of rat-founded conclusions.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Ratbarf wrote:

Yes and no, the altered state of concsiousness does play a part in it, but the same could be said for anytime you imbibe alcohol, or don't get enough sleep. The gateway part is that instead of going to the corner store where the person you're buying the product from only wants to sell you some doritos and maybe a can of pop, the drug dealer you bought that weed off of wants to sell you coke, meth, heroin, what have you. When you buy it that's his time to make his pitch for these other drugs, or try and push them on you. The friendly vietnamese fellow behind the counter at the Mac's Milk won't try to turn your cigarette/booze/pot purchase into a chance to upsell his heroin because there's a sale on it this month.

I've bought drugs for years now, almost a decade. I've dealt with dozens of dealers in different parts of Canada, and never once I've I had a dealer try to push anything on me. The dealer/buyer relationship isn't like that. You say how much, they give it to you, and then there gone. You don't go from craving weed to buying E, or heroin.

Yep, same here, except in my case it's not a decade, it's around 15 years. Dealers don't 'push'. That seems to be a media invention, in my experience.

I'm quite peeved that the US is now more progressive on this issue than Canada. Seems like we've had no progress on this at all up here.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Ratbarf wrote:

Yes and no, the altered state of concsiousness does play a part in it, but the same could be said for anytime you imbibe alcohol, or don't get enough sleep. The gateway part is that instead of going to the corner store where the person you're buying the product from only wants to sell you some doritos and maybe a can of pop, the drug dealer you bought that weed off of wants to sell you coke, meth, heroin, what have you. When you buy it that's his time to make his pitch for these other drugs, or try and push them on you. The friendly vietnamese fellow behind the counter at the Mac's Milk won't try to turn your cigarette/booze/pot purchase into a chance to upsell his heroin because there's a sale on it this month.

I've bought drugs for years now, almost a decade. I've dealt with dozens of dealers in different parts of Canada, and never once I've I had a dealer try to push anything on me. The dealer/buyer relationship isn't like that. You say how much, they give it to you, and then there gone. You don't go from craving weed to buying E, or heroin.

Of course, you could go from craving weed to buying hash, but that's mostly the same thing.

While what I know about the drug trade isn't much, I have two close friends and a co-worker that smoke pot. None of them have ever been pushed to purchase anything else, any other drug that they wish to try has been purely on their own curiosity. My close friend didn't smoke pot a year ago, but now that's pretty much how he spends every evening. A year ago, he had tried pot in the past, but it "wasn't for him" and drugs were not something he needed in his life. Last night I overheard him discussing buying acid strips off of a local stripper, and trying shrooms, and I know for a fact that the other two are also interested. So the gateway is not, "oh man Jesse Pinkman and Walter White are trying to get me to buy some of their meth after buying weed for years." It's, "I used to think pot was x, tried it and now know it to be y. I wonder if this drug is different than what I've heard about it."

Look at it this way, how many beer drinkers does anyone know that just stick with that and never try anything stronger?
They didn't need a bartender to invite them to try vodka, whiskey, or whatever. Usually they were with friends and were invited or decided on their own to try something stronger.
It's human nature for most people to want to build on something they enjoy, whether it's for their good or not.

Look at it this way, how many beer drinkers does anyone know that just stick with that and never try anything stronger?
They didn't need a bartender to invite them to try vodka, whiskey, or whatever. Usually they were with friends and were invited or decided on their own to try something stronger.
It's human nature for most people to want to build on something they enjoy, whether it's for their good or not.

That isn't a good analogy, as both beer and vodka are the same active ingredient. A proper drug analogy would be graduating from joints to brownies or some other form of ingestestion that increases the dosage of THC.

 Ratbarf wrote:

Look at it this way, how many beer drinkers does anyone know that just stick with that and never try anything stronger?
They didn't need a bartender to invite them to try vodka, whiskey, or whatever. Usually they were with friends and were invited or decided on their own to try something stronger.
It's human nature for most people to want to build on something they enjoy, whether it's for their good or not.

That isn't a good analogy, as both beer and vodka are the same active ingredient. A proper drug analogy would be graduating from joints to brownies or some other form of ingestestion that increases the dosage of THC.

I think it is for the fact that people become jaded and want to move on to the next thing, more so if their friends are doing it.

Relapse wrote:
I think it is for the fact that people become jaded and want to move on to the next thing, more so if their friends are doing it.

People worry less about something once they've tried it before, or once they've been assured by people they trust that you can do this thing without harm.

Since it's pretty common, and it's obvious that there's no or very little harm to pot, it's the first to be tried. Those that stick to it might later on escalate to other things, but that's simply because they've said, 'hell, this isn't so bad, maybe this next thing isn't as bad as everyone tell me'. If this is what you mean by jaded, that's fine. If you mean people who do drugs are always looking for the big hit, or escalate because of immunity building up, then no.

Almost every smokers I've known put very definite limits to what they'll do. I used to be pretty dogmatic about not ever trying anything harder then weed, then got described a few other highs that I ended up trying, didn't work for me. Still, I know I'll never attempt heroin, for example.

Again, same. Most kids are brought up within a culture that understands heroin as being A Bad Thing. I've taken acid, E/MDMA, Mushrooms, Speed, downers, Ether, coke/crack - even I know that heroin is bad and should be avoided. Every drug I did, I did because I wanted to do them, not because I ventured into the murky world of drugs and was sucked into a nightmare of addiction. It was just fun. I am prone to impulsive behaviour, I had irresponsible parents, and I grew up in an area where such things were available. Everyone's different. I know people who only smoke pot and nothing else. I know people who only take coke and nothing else. Gateways are a myth peddled by people who know next-to-nothing about drug culture.

 Albatross wrote:
Again, same. Most kids are brought up within a culture that understands heroin as being A Bad Thing. I've taken acid, E/MDMA, Mushrooms, Speed, downers, Ether, coke/crack - even I know that heroin is bad and should be avoided. Every drug I did, I did because I wanted to do them, not because I ventured into the murky world of drugs and was sucked into a nightmare of addiction. It was just fun. I am prone to impulsive behaviour, I had irresponsible parents, and I grew up in an area where such things were available. Everyone's different. I know people who only smoke pot and nothing else. I know people who only take coke and nothing else. Gateways are a myth peddled by people who know next-to-nothing about drug culture.

There was no culture in the crack house I lived in for those several months, but there were definitly plenty of drugs. The way at least half the people living there found themselves in that place was by starting out with weed and working their way from there.

Relapse wrote:

 Albatross wrote:
Again, same. Most kids are brought up within a culture that understands heroin as being A Bad Thing. I've taken acid, E/MDMA, Mushrooms, Speed, downers, Ether, coke/crack - even I know that heroin is bad and should be avoided. Every drug I did, I did because I wanted to do them, not because I ventured into the murky world of drugs and was sucked into a nightmare of addiction. It was just fun. I am prone to impulsive behaviour, I had irresponsible parents, and I grew up in an area where such things were available. Everyone's different. I know people who only smoke pot and nothing else. I know people who only take coke and nothing else. Gateways are a myth peddled by people who know next-to-nothing about drug culture.

There was no culture in the crack house I lived in for those several months, but there were definitly plenty of drugs. The way at least half the people living there found themselves in that place was by starting out with weed and working their way from there.

Most people who stab someone else start by picking up a knife. Does that mean everyone who picks up a knife will go on to stab someone?

Also, you don't know what culture means. Culture is indivisible from human behaviour.

Relapse wrote:
There was no culture in the crack house I lived in for those several months, but there were definitly plenty of drugs. The way at least half the people living there found themselves in that place was by starting out with weed and working their way from there.

I think the problem is with the 'house' part of 'crack house'. I'd like to search this, but I feel a great majority of people who consume drugs aren't in that kind of situation, where your habitation is actually defined by the drug usage there.

But of course, this goes with what we said, basically, if you are in an area were everyone tells you constantly, ''hey, try this, it's cool and doesn't harm at all'', even if it's meth, well, you'll end up scratching scabs from your arms and smoke them for the crystals rejected from your body (heard this, might not be true, but still horrified me).

People like buzzes. Its the 21st century, bloody hell, can I please have my buzz without worrying about fething cops hauling my ass?