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Marijuana Facts and Myths

The Gateway Drug

            In our last article, we discussed the statistics of deaths caused by smoking marijuana compared to cigarette smoking. This argument inevitably leads to the discussion of marijuana being the gateway drug. The drug that opens the door for pot smokers to begin using crack and heroine. This is at least what many opponents to marijuana present as their argument. (Probably because they lack evidence to support arguments for direct dangerous affects.)

            Interestingly enough, we agree with them. It is very simple when you think about it. Anything that you make illegal you create a subculture of criminal enterprise. So while pot smoking does not create direct danger such as overdose it does however promote a culture of illegal activity. I am not saying that pot smoking attracts cocaine users but because we have created an illegal environment for pot smoking it would stand to reason that other illegal activities could occur within this comfort zone. If anyone remembers going to a Grateful Dead show they would immediately relate with what I am saying. When you went to a Dead show there was pot smoking but there was also opium smoking, dropping LSD, and eating mushrooms. Again the illegal nature of the activities promoted the use of these varying substances. This is not just conjecture isolated to a concert venue; there is an abundance of evidence to support this position.

            For example, the drug ecstasy was used mainly in spiritual and psychological counseling setting prior to 1985[i]. After it was made illegal in 1985 that is when the drug became extremely popular and created the Rave subculture. I am pretty sure that if you go to a Rave party you will find much more than Ecstasy being used and sold.

            But let’s look at the gateway drug alcohol. Yes, alcohol is a gateway drug and perhaps the worst kind because it is legal. (At least for most.) Alcohol has an age restriction of 21 placed upon it. As a result of restricting alcohol we as a society infantilize the use of alcohol. We tell people all the way up to the age of 21 that alcohol is bad and that it is wrong to drink. (We do this as we are having a beer or martini mind you.) Then we expect people to act responsibly with alcohol merely upon the turning of age 21. Without prior discussion, other than saying bad things about drinking, the unrealistic expectation is that these 21’s will drink properly.

            Colleges and Universities have begun to realize that the prohibition of alcohol to individuals between 18 and 21 has been counterproductive.  Although statistics show that drinking and alcohol related highway fatalities have steadily declined since 1980, the rate of binge drinking and other related statistics has increased sharply.  John McCardell Jr., an esteemed historian of the American South and former head of Middlebury College, states,

“raising the minimum age to 21…forced alcohol consumption behind the closed doors of [dorms] and fraternity basements. Always unsupervised, done in secret and too often excessive, this style of drinking has no doubt been responsible for the alarming rise in rates of so-called 'binge' drinking seen at colleges."[ii]

            Accompanying the binge drinking are increased rapes, accidental deaths, failure to maintain scholastic standards, and illicit activities such as drugs and drug dealing. As we study this problem we have to ask whether these activities truly warrant criminalization. Criminalizing drinking or pot smoking seems to cause more problems than it solves. Worse yet it increases the chances of other issues developing.

            From these examples we can see that criminalizing mostly benign activities has the same effect as criminalizing dangerous activities. By making marijuana illegal to purchase we create a subculture where the gateway to other worse activities is wide open.

Content written by the Academic Collective LLC. Visit www.Academiccollective.com

References

[i] Shulgin AT; Nichols DE (1978). "Characterization of Three New Psychotomimetics". In Willette, Robert E.; Stillman, Richard Joseph. The Psychopharmacology of Hallucinogens.. New York:

[ii] Should the Drinking Age Be Lowered? By John Cloud Friday, June 06, 2008 Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1812397,00.html