Study says marijuana no gateway drug

Ask yourselves this question then..if marijuana is bad..how come Barack Obama openly admitts that in his time he did COCAINE and MARIJUANA. Does anyone know why? because obviously its not that bad..marijuana can be used for so many reasons besides what people think..its used to relieve anxiety and anger and it stops pain AND theres never been a recorded death to a overdose of marijuana..its safer then Ibuprofen and its ILLEGAL? why is that? Can anyone answer that question with out lies?

I started smoking marijuana before I ever took my first drink or pull on a cigarette. For new jobs who drug test and all types of other situations I would have to stop smoking marijuana for months at a time (one time for a couple of years). The time periods I quit smoking marijuana went by as a breeze and the times I started back were even more enjoyable. On the other hand when my girlfriends and other female company started complaining about the horrible stinch cigarettes left on me, it made me decide to quit cigarettes. OH MY GOD! Being that I quit smoking marijuana so easily on numerous occasions, I decided to quit cold-turkey like I did with marijuana. HOLY SHIT! The withdraws that I faced were out of this world! Every muscle in my body burned as my limbs shivered under the sheets each night. My nerves were uncontrolable making me snap on any innocent person with a question to ask me. After I got past it all I realized that cigarettes are 10t more addictive than marijuana. Right now the only thing I smoke is marijuana and I have no urge to do anything else. I work out every morning, work 5 days a week, go to school 3 days a week, and still find time to record music. I am in no way looked at as a "pot head". So for anyone who thinks that marijuana is SOO horrible, I just ask them to look at me.

I think we all should be open to the possibility that marijuana could be harmful and possibly should not be used as a medicine.

Although based on most studies i have seen i feel much more inclined to believe that its harmfulness is quite low (yes it is harmful, breathing in smoke damages the cells in your lungs. Although there are no implications yet that it can cause lung cancer. If you do not believe me look up Dr. Donald Tashkins he is a professor at UCLA who did a study on whether or not marijuana causes lung cancer.) but the question is to bring this harm into perspective because there are so many harmful things.

Also I think we need to question the logic behind why we legalize certain substances. If the argument is that we legalize substances because of the harm the substance does to the body and the mind then my question would be why is alcohol and tobacco usage legal when they clearly display equally harmful if not more harmful consequences to the body and mind the marijuana?

As for the gateway argument, i think it is ill founded. If i drink milk does that mean ill go on to drink alcohol? I think if we did a study we could clearly show that most users who abuse alcohol started with milk. Is milk a gateway drug? The flaw in the gateway assumption is initially that there is nothing in marijuana that causes one to want to do other more harmful drugs the same goes with milk.

Why then, do we link the two? If anything i would say it is because marijuana is illegal and people link it to other illegal drugs. If they can justify doing one illegal some what potentially harmful drug then why not other? If then that is correct then, it would not be marijuana that is the problem, it would be the prohibition of marijuana that is the problem.

I however have a bias in all of this because i am guilty of smoking marijuana and would like it to not be harmful and would like it to be legalized. Thus, I am in the mists of a great study to see whether or not it is worth the potential harm. Perhaps vaporization would greatly reduce the health risk.

Anyways if you have read this far and are as interested as i am than i suggest you study it. Dont become the typical uneducated stoner, read about it and study it, if people disrespect your personal choice than attleast make it an well known and thought out one for your own self respect. I think you owe it to yourself.

you said always; however, i know plenty of people who have indeed not tried anything harder then marijuana and have never had the desire to do so. i believe that moving on to the much harder drugs is more of a choice than a "forced thing." the people who do not get a satisfying high from weed then choose to move to a harder drug, it does not guarantee that you will try harder drugs if you choose to smoke pot.

Hello, Have you ever smoked pot because I have. But first I drank perfectly legal alcohol. And I still smoke and I have never ever wanted to use any other drugs for the fear of dieing and also i don't wanna fuck up my life due to the addiction that comes from that. I am a Casual smoker I smoke once every week to every two to three weeks. I have no Addiction to it and I have never tried or wanted to try other drugs.

I've made it only through the first couple comments in response to this blog and would just like to point out that anything in over consumption is not "good for you". Please, do me a favor and refrain from making this seem like its incredibly dangerous because realistically, there are an infinite number of ways we all die.

Do you know that most of the drugs approved by the FDA are the drugs that actually cause cancer and other LIFE threatning illnesses. Show me a study of someone or multiple people who are addicted to marijuana. You will find that there are more alcoholics and tobacco addicts than there are pot heads. Check the stats no related deaths to pot....all that do involve pot are in conjunction with another drug not pot alone. FDA that!!

it is common sense we ban marijuana they just broke a law so why stop you are already "doing a bad thing" so might as well keep going into deeper water. people need to be educated on the difference between marijuana and drugs. that was not an error either. another possible factor is their outside influences such as the people they might hang around with. as long as people know the difference you will see a difference in centers such as these.

First off I disagree with anyone who states that marijuana is addicting. I am a frequent marijuana smoker and have been for some time. I show no signs of being addicted to marijuana. When a person is arrested for possession and is forced to get drug tested they must immediately stop smoking in order to pass. I have not heard of anyone who has failed to be able to do this no matter how often they smoke. That alone should show that everyone who believes marijuana is addicting is indeed.......... A FUCKING IDIOT. Next i would like to state that i agree marijuana is not a gateway drug. I agree 100% with the segment of the article which says, "the likelihood that someone will transition to the use of illegal drugs is determined not by the preceding use of a particular drug but instead by the user’s individual tendencies and environmental circumstances." I have no desire to go into harder drugs then marijuana. Throughout the years of smoking, i have started to despise harder drugs. Alcohol even seems much less appealing and i no longer enjoy it. In conclusion i find it funny that all the accusation that marijuana is a gateway drug, is addicting, is cancerous, etc. are all being proved wrong, and soon people will discover all the bullshit about marijuana that our government has been hypnotizing us with.

I disagreement with a lot of the comment on this post. Most of the guys will say that they can stop anytime they want. Tell them to stop for a month. You will end with answers such as "it is just cause i don't want to" " I am not interested for now". I had the same problem and saying the same things. I am a living example of that. I was smoking pot nothing else until I ended up in a drug rehab center. It is easy to talk when you are not stopping.

I smoke weed and i can just drop it when i want. I've went months without weed and have been perfectly fine. Marijuana itself is not addictive. What happens is there are people that are unable to cope with something in their lives and they use it to escape those problems and that's why they don't stop.

I love how you bash someone for their grammar and spelling mistakes and blame it on drugs,when the comment below yours is so full of them its almost unreadable. They are against drugs completely, so whats their excuse for writing nonsense like this?

"...drugs lead to worser circumstances"

"However, growing up and using drugs most likely that bad circumstance would be
repeated onto the next generation through spawn"

"If we as a society legalize marajuana we are saying mood altering substances are excepted among society as a way of coping with life."

I thought only potheads and druggies were uneducated and unable to write properly. By the way I smoke marijuana on a regular basis to help me replax, and I do not have a problem writing correctly.

I do not care what you think marijuana is addicting. If you say it is not try going without it for awhile chances are you cant. also some people do not go into drug rehab just because the cops make them I have a friend that went to Narconons drug rehab and she went cause one day she woke up in the hospital covered in blood and the doctor told her it was a miracle that she made it through the night . That was her wake up call that she needed help she was a mother and she wanted to see her child grow up , and that was when she went to narconon.

there have been no DIRECT deaths from marijuana use, THC and caffeine are both drugs, and if someone fell on a pencil after taking caffeine you wouldn't call it a coffee related death would you? What I mean is marijuana causes no direct health damage, in the same way that alcohol causes liver damage

Mr. "much more intelligent" check your grammar before you write an argument it may help your creditabiliy as a drug user. In reading this it is clear you use marajuana. Mispellings and bad grammmar are very prevelant and rampid. Justify your harmful acts to yourself and society however you may. Don't worry it won't kill you to hear the truth. lol

Also ask your 'weed addicts' how many of them are in your rehab on their own free will. Most of them have been arrestted on some b/s charge and forced into rehab. that is only good for the rehab workers who have job security because they will never run out of people to arrest for possession for marijuana. It is also good for the courts, lawyers, and police who all get a little kickback for taking drugs of any kind off the streets. I bet that rehab workers in general would rather have people in their programs on pot than on heroin anyway... I mean if you had real addicts in your program you might have to work harder!

Marijuana .. whether good or bad ... just dont get addicted. addiction of any sort is bad. and even if you are addicted, get treated for. places like drug rehab at malibu have very good facilities. Personalized care and support program etc.

Someone commented:

"Weed always leads to harder drugs. I work in a drug rehab and about 80% of people started out with marijuana"

Well, i've smoked weed for about 10 years, i hold a successful job, am in great physical shape, have never went on to harder drugs, pay my bills, clean license, great lover(so i've been told)..... also i have multiple friends who only smoke weed, heck, dont even drink alchohol, and if used in a Vaporizer weed has no long term affects on your health. People need to stop making assumptions cause they cant handle their own addictions and want to ruin it for everyone else......

sooo if i get fed candy when i'm a kid, does that mean i'm gonna grow up to have a fatty ice cream, chocolate cake, sugary, horrible diet?!!!!!
no no, its called self control

It just seems that people have become sooo softened over the years, instead of realizing they have a problem and confronting it, they have to come up with some medical term to give them an excuse "oh its not my fault my daddy drank and my mommy was a lazy fat pig so i can live my life like that and shouldnt recieve any blame" straight BS

Sure hereditary situations can have effects on people, but(for the most part) instead of getting another drug from the Doc to fix the problem, the real prescriptions should be hard work, dedication, and willpower, the only true way to overcome your problems.....

I think the article was comparing marijuana with tobacco and alcohol use. Did you ask how many of your 80% started by smoking cigarettes or alcohol? I think it's pretty unfair to say they are your patients due to marijuana alone (and not environmental factors) I assume all of your patients ate. Maybe that's what did it.

This whole conversation bring us back to that age old saying "politics over anything logical or scientific:.Ultimately although the science may say a certain thing if the economics and politics dont much up what scientically logica is ignored.....sad but true

Luckson
http://mydrugtherapy.blogspot.com/

I've had a father that tried them all, from mj to LSD passing through heroin and a lot more.
How can anyone in a medical center say it's not a gateway drug. Because they asked the blood cells if they wanted coke next?

I've seen the decadence mj and the rest bring. It's not small. I wrote an article in my blog about it recently.
http://ourearthlyrights.blogspot.com/2009/08/why-i-believe-in-drug-education.html

you're not accounting for the marijuana users that have stuck to marijuana and don't need rehab as a result of.

you're missing a very large number of people there.

Weed always leads to harder drugs. I work in a drug rehab and about 80% of people started out with marijuana.

There is no such thing as a gateway drug. Addictions are symptoms of an underlying genetic disease called Hypoism. Initial use of an addictor(substance or behavioral) is a choice. The book has been written for 13 years now. If you want to reach a new level of self-understanding check this website out. www.hypoism.com This is the real deal. Hope it helps!

your from reddit, arnt you. i'am lol