Marijuana is its own special category, but club drugs (which for some reason include date rape drugs), inhalants and steroids are all in a “miscellaneous” category together?
Also, note all the ridiculous drug propaganda lies.
The people who blabber incessantly about weed being a gateway drug are the exact REASON that I agree with them, but we VERY much disagree on the specifics.
Think of it this way:
Every adult in your life has told you that weed is JUST AS BAD as heroin and cocain and meth. You hear it repeated ad nauseum, ESPECIALLY if you were in DARE.
Now one day someone you have known for a long time offers you some because “it’s not that bad, trust me you’ll be fine” and they go ahead and take a puff or twelve. Turns out it’s not that bad. They were fine after some initial uncoordinated attempts at doing something.
So if weed is this interesting, maybe heroin isn’t that bad either?
Yeah turns out heroin IS that bad, and lumping it in with weed is like tossing the kindergarten bully into a maxsec prison.
So yeah, it’s only a “gAtEwAy dRuG” because you fucks lied for decades and made false equivalence of things and taught kids they can’t trust you.
Turned out, the gateway drug was tobacco…
Arguably one of the worst drugs to be taking. Death is slow and agonizingly painful. The addiction is deep seeded. The high is very minor, like you see me going out on heroin you know I’ve experienced things your greatest orgasm could never compare too. Smoking, I got to like, stand outside for 5 mins at a time.
I’ve experienced things your greatest orgasm could never compare too.
But to anyone reading this, DO NOT DO HEROIN. It’s life-ruining. There’s that story of the guy on Reddit who decided to try it, and gave updates as it ruined his life. He stopped updating and people assume he’s just dead.
Seriously, heroin is some fucked up shit.
I looked it up to read it, harrowing but I don’t think he is dead. He posted a few years ago saying that the account is too much to log in on, from all the messages and I get that. I once made some posts/comments about being suicidal that got nowhere near the attention he got and I was getting DMs about it for years. I can’t imagine the stress of logging in to that account with how many mentions, DMs and comments it must receive, about a really really shitty time in your life.
https://www.reddit.com/user/SpontaneousH/comments/pux3ls/its_been_a_while/?context=3
Oh well would you look at that. Good for him, says he’s been clean.
/u/SpontaneousH
Archived that shit - read it when I was a teen and it convinced me to stay far away from drugs and addiction.
While drunk, I got insane cravings for cocaine and nicotine
While high, I get insane cravings for pizza and Tame Impala
I just get hang overs.
Weed doesn’t hit like it use to. I think weed/stress and responsibility is a bad combo.
I’ll agree but sooner or later everyone is going to make the leap its just a matter of how far they think the fall is.
Say we start thinking about weed the same way we think about alcohol now. Ok but there is molly, mushrooms, LSD, and ketamine that can all easily step into the space that weed had occupied. Say we discrimininlize all that too. Now people understand how mood altering substances work and aren’t afraid them. Does heroin seem more accessible now?
I’m not saying a tier system is good and maybe society is just fundamentally flawed in the way it thinks about mind altering substances. Some how though, we need to show people before they learn the hard way, that substance abuse has lasting adverse effects including death.
Weed is a gateway drug to the fridge.
lmao
Marijuana is not a gateway drug.
Having to deal with a drug dealer that wants to also sell you actually addictive drugs is the gateway.
Legalize pot, sell it at the grocery store, and you will watch the number of addicts in general fall precipitously. I guarantee it.
Weird how cigarettes and alcohol are not ‘gateway drugs.’
That’s because from a health perspective, alcohol in particular is an “end state drug”. It’s what you die with. It ruins you. Not as fast as heroine, but just as thoroughly.
So if I just occasionally have a beer with dinner does that mean I could also enjoy a bit of light recreational heroine for dessert?
light recreational heroine
The best dessert.
Don’t forget shampoo!
My D.A.R.E. officer made sure we all knew that shampoo is a drug because it’s a chemical compound that physically affects our bodies. I definitely had fewer issues with drugs after learning that I was already a ‘drug user’.
That’s actually a pretty good way to think about it though. Drugs are just chemical compounds and different compounds have different effects on the body.
Are you sure that D.A.R.E officer was not secretly cool?
D.A.R.E. has been proven to increase drug use, so I don’t think it was just him. The entire ‘scare tactic’ just doesn’t work.
I had fewer issues with drugs after doing drugs, having a great time, feeling better the next morning than if I’d had 4 pints of beer.
Yeah, I really wonder who writes these, and what their outlook on their job is. They have to know that the content has some pretty strong omissions or false inclusions there for political reasons.
The “gateway drug” thing was a lie in 1985 and its a lie now.
I buy THC drinks online from 3Chi. I haven’t had an urge to try anything harder (in fact, I’m a bit scared of anything that might affect my heart (aside from booze becaus3 we all do at least one very stupid thing), and the only thing I do want to try but only with a good support group around is shrooms).
I wonder what the stats in Canada look like now.
Having to deal with a drug dealer that wants to also sell you actually addictive drugs is the gateway.
Marijuana is addictive though. Maybe not as addictive as some other things, but pretending it’s completely non addictive is disingenuous and misleading. It’s more addictive than say LSD or psilocybin for example.
That isn’t to say it should remain illegal though. Legalisation has positive benefits even for harder, more addictive substances than marijuana. See the history of alcohol prohibition for example, or the disaster that is the war on drugs.
Having to deal with a drug dealer that wants to also sell you actually addictive drugs
Clearly marijuana has some serious kind of habituation, and it’s equally clear that many people that use marijuana are problem users. Addictive? No, not by any strict definition of addiction, since you won’t suffer serious adverse effects if you stop. OTOH, I’ve known at least as many problem marijuana users as problem drinkers
The question isn’t whether Marijuana is habit forming. Obviously for some percentage it is. The question is whether Marijuana use in and of itself encourages or preface additional drug use. My position is that it does not and by legalizing Marijuana we would find that it is the interaction with black market drug dealers which correlates instead.
The question is whether Marijuana use in and of itself encourages or preface additional drug use.
I would argue that in many ways it does. Marijuana is–or was–illegal. Alcohol is legal, but age restricted. If you are willing to use a substance that is (was) entirely illegal, you are more likely going to be willing to try other drugs that are legitimately addictive, because you’ve already crossed one of the major hurdles. If alcohol had been illegal for the same amount of time that marijuana had been, then I would agree that alcohol was likely a gateway drug as well.
I’m in favor of de-scheduling marijuana entirely. But I think that it’s disingenuous for people to act as though there weren’t serious problems with chronic and underage marijuana use.
You’re saying that it has nothing to do with marijuana itself that make it a gateway drug, only that we’ve made it illegal.
That means anything we make illegal is a ‘gateway X’.
After a quick search through us history, alcohol was banned around 1920 and lasted for about 13 years. The marijuana ban that we all know of happened, get this, in 1970, and states began pushing back only 3 years after. So, alcohol was banned far longer than marijuana. The d.a.r.e. campaigns and other propoganda coupled with the inability to do scientific studies on the drug created the mass panic. There were not serious problems, other than some politician needing a platform.
So, alcohol was banned far longer than marijuana.
…What? The 1970s were 50 years ago. And marijuana was illegal long before it was classified as a schedule 1 drug under the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970.
You’re going to have to provide some source for it being illegal. Arguably, it was contentious in the 30s, but the first official ruling was 1970.
It also seems like you don’t understand that it being banned 50 years ago is not the same as it being banned for 50 years.
It was banned in 1970, but 3 years after, states pushed back.
Alcohol was banned in 1920, and 13 years later, it was unbanned.
You are coming across as very emotional about this, but you are showing how little you have researched. I don’t have time to bring you up to speed if you are only going to keep your fingers in your ears while you shut your eyes and scream how right you are.
Have a good day.
It was banned in 1970
You are coming across as very emotional about this, but you are showing how little you have researched.
Ironic.
1951-56:
Stricter Sentencing Laws
Enactment of federal laws (Boggs Act, 1952; Narcotics Control Act, 1956) which set mandatory sentences for drug-related offenses, including marijuana.
A first-offense marijuana possession carried a minimum sentence of 2-10 years with a fine of up to $20,000.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/etc/cron.html#:~:text=Enactment of federal laws (Boggs,fine%20of%20up%20to%20%2420%2C000.
Alcohol was banned in 1920, and 13 years later, it was unbanned.
The prohibition was protested long before it was finally repealed.
Uneven enforcement and the continued circulation of illegal alcohol led to widespread lawbreaking, corruption, and a nationwide backlash. Opposition to Prohibition by elected officials and grassroots organizations in New York, including Governor Al Smith, Congressman Fiorello La Guardia, and the Manhattan-based Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform (WONPR), increased throughout the 1920s.
It also seems like you don’t understand that it being banned 50 years ago is not the same as it being banned for 50 years.
Dude, it is literally illegal at the federal level at this very moment. If you use marijuana, and you buy a firearm, you are a felon. The ban may not be fully enforced in some states right now, but the feds can, at any moment, and on a whim, go into California and Colorado and arrest every single person working at a dispensary and charge them under federal drug trafficking laws, and send every single one of them to prison for life.
I would ask what you’re on, but I’m pretty sure I can guess.
If you are willing to use a substance that is (was) entirely illegal, you are more likely going to be willing to try other drugs that are legitimately addictive, because you’ve already crossed one of the major hurdle
It’s honestly rather ludicrous to still see 60’s propaganda being parroted. You’re on the internet, dude. There’s no need for you to be that ignorant.
I bet it’s a useful plant and that’s why people use it daily.
Oh, guess what, it’s time to take my meds, I’ll be back after a few bong hits before I go back to work.
The fact that LSD and shrooms are in the same category as PCP.
I have never in my life heard anyone actually call weed “dope.”
“Dope” is heroin, and its derivatives and relations.
I heard it called that back around 1985.
As in; when this was written…
I do all the time and my son makes fun of me for it. That’s how we rolled in the late 70’s/early 80’s
Old crew checking in. I still call it dope, and get side eyed for it.
In pineapple express they call it “the dopest dope I ever smoked”… But I now realize that movie is almost 20 years old.
Yeah i only heard it called that ironically or as an in joke
Dope is 100% also used for weed. Maybe just less common for the younger gens.
Smokin’ on the finest dope, ay-ay-ay-ah
Yep that certainly is exactly the bullshit I was taught in the Midwest.
I wish schools were able to use the categories of “do your research” “probably a bad idea” and “definitely a bad idea”. There are drugs kids need to be warned about and by being honest about marijuana and lsd you build credibility when you tell them to never try opiates and that poppers may not ruin your life, but like there’s never a situation where they’re a good idea.
We also need to be honest about how we got into our opioid epidemic and how most heroin addicts got hooked after getting prescribed.
Kids are stupid but they aren’t stupid how us adults think they are. When we lie to them they remember to discount everything we say, even to not smoke cigarettes.
Well said. I made sure I told her all about the opioid epidemic and she already understands how shitty our healthcare system is.
I get the sense that the author hasn’t tried many or any of these substances and is trotting out the standard line. I didn’t see alcohol, cigarettes and Oxycontin mentioned.
If we’re going to have an adult conversation about addictive substances we should first talk about sugar and junk food. We should also discuss the dangers of a sedentary lifestyle, lack of healthcare and community, ignorance of mental health, motor vehicles, pollution, the criminal justice system, Judeo-Christian culture and being a person of colour. Those will form the major risk factors for human health.
we should first talk about sugar and junk food
Absolutely not. Cigarettes are way way way more dangerous than sugar and junk-food
I mean yes but at least in the US the latter two are overwhelmingly more common.
Issue with the US is that HFCS is heavily subsidized, and thus added to everything.
False. Heart disease is the number one killer.
Where is the alcohol section that causes probably the most deaths per year?
It was in a separate lesson, which was similarly filled with bullshit.
GHB and rufies are used recreationally, not just for date rape.
The purpose of drug education programs in schools is to scare kids, not to genuinely educate kids so they can make informed decisions in their own lives. They also can’t cover everything because the education system is fucked and drugs would require a semester to teach to an appropriate degree and serve harm reduction. They also need to not tell kids enough because it could backfire and make drugs seem interesting to try. Try making DMT not sound awesome.
The whole topic of drugs could easily be covered in 30 minutes. The only thing people under 18 need to know is this:
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There are a large variety of different recreational drugs, each of which make you feel a different way, and which come with their own set of different risks and benefits
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At some point when you’re older it may be reasonable for you to try some particular drugs, but there are some drugs which are never safe for anyone at any age
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No drugs are safe for you to do yet. Your brain is still in a developing phase, and drugs that might be safe for you to do later will be very harmful to you at this age. Even though taking a drug might make you feel good in the very short term moment, it very likely could make your growing brain become depressed as soon as you come down from the drug, and this can become intense sadness that you feel for the rest of your life.
So for now just know that drugs is a complex topic that you can learn more about later when you’re older, but for now the details don’t matter because all drugs will be harmful to you right now while your brain is still growing
2.1 before you do try something, find out how to test for contaminants/counterfeits. You don’t want to do battery acid
Or how about this:
The body is a super complex chemical eco-system. Messing with it is understandably super difficult, if you do not want to cause damage. All drugs have side effects. Known or otherwise. Using drugs for any reason is like throwing a funnily shaped wrench in to a factory you do not fully understand. It always causes problems. In medical science we try to figure out what type of wrench causes the least destruction while providing some benefit. We then weigh the benefits against the downsides. Leave these decisions to someone that has dedicated their life to this science. Let them make educated guesses for you. Instead of you just guessing. Generally, don’t use any drug unless you have to. Stop as soon as is recommended by your doctor. Assume that any drug you use, will have a permanent, accumulative detrimental effect on the body. Just to be safe.
It’s kind of like in the 1800s they believed that human beings could never generate enough pollutants to actually affect the Earth. There are intelligent opinions statements saying that the Earth was simply too large for anything a mere handful of 100 million humans could do to leave any lasting impact on.
Of course, they had no idea that we would swell to 8 billion humans or that the industrial revolution would take off quite so well as it did, but even today there are many people who believe that nothing that they individually do can leave any type of lasting ecological impact, positive or negative.
And because of that you have bum fuck HVAC technicians venting refrigerants into the atmosphere willy-nilly and assholes driving down the street throwing lit cigarette butts out in the middle of a drought and people just dumping their trash wherever they find an opportunity to dump it.
I said all of that to say that it’s probably likely that even minor usage of drugs cause effects that are at best difficult to quantify. I don’t think getting high one time is going to be the differentiation between a homeless bum and a Nobel Peace prize winner, but it might be the difference between someone who works a career and earns at their best $250,000 a year and someone who works a career and earns at their best $80,000 a year.
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From what I hear the best way to make dmt sound not awesome is to describe the taste
Used corn oil, tortillas, and a hint of a taste like new car air conditioning smells with an aftertaste of a little bit of brake fluid. Yeah, I can kind of see how that would be off-putting but you won’t mind it and you can just swallow it with a liter of black current juice and spend some quality time with machine elves instead of vaping it.
The taste aspect of DMT is like a partner who is 10/10 that will blow your mind in every way but who has farts that smell like a rotting dumpster of seafood and offal on fire outside of a wastewater treatment facility. You can’t just write them off because of one manageable issue.
The fact it still teaches the “gateway drug” shit tells me it’s outdated as hell.
Hmm, I went looking around and it seems opinions are mixed?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_drug_effect#History suggests one longitudinal study found a causal link, but another meta-study found a correlation without enough evidence to indicate a causal link?
I’d argue that if there is any gateway effect, it’s solely related to the propaganda taught to the public that falls apart once you’ve actually tried some of them.
I don’t think there’s anything inherent about the drugs themselves that would drive you to try anything stronger. It’s more that the misinformation makes people think “if they lied to me about this, what else were they lying about?” after trying something like weed and realizing it doesn’t turn you into a psychopath or make you want to jump out of a window.
When you gotta hang out with people (who most likely do/sell other drugs), no risk that you’re going to get an offer to try something else.
Not really true at all in Canada. Once again this is just the side effects of weed being illegal being mistaken for the fault of the substance when it’s not.
Where did I say otherwise? If you’re able to go to a normal licenced shop and buy it, of course the example I gave wouldn’t happen.
Your child is lucky to have you as a parent.
I’m glad I can be around to tell her what is and is not bullshit or propaganda. Even when it’s about alcohol and cigarettes. They don’t even discuss medication options for alcohol and nicotine addictions despite those being real options that work well for some people.
Did they even tell her about alcohol? I didn’t see it in there at all
They did. It was a separate lesson. It was also full of nonsense.
And they’re making a fucking mess of the pharmacological and social definitions of “drug”. It’s the propaganda version of that “ackshyually tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable” brain-rotting idiocy.
Depressant, stimulant, those refer to the pharmacological activity; it’ll include even things not socially considered as drugs, such as caffeine (stimulant) and alcohol (depressant). In this sense marijuana is not its own class, it’s THC is a depressant.
That “club drugs” category is a fucking mess in both definitions. Ketamine is an anaesthetic, thus likely a depressant; ecstasy is mostly a stimulant with weak hallucinogen properties, pharmacologically they’re nothing alike. And socially they’re closer to caffeine (as things that you ingest willingly) than to date rape drugs (things that people give you against your consent).
And even the division in social drugs depends on usage. Marijuana for example can be used for clinical or recreative reasons; abuse is of course bad, but frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if most marijuana smokers had better lungs than I do (I don’t smoke weed but I smoke tobacco - nicotine is a
depressantstimulant BTW). Same deal with the date rape drugs, alcohol could be used as one.Aaaaah, sorry for the rant. What I want to convey is that yeah, I get why this infuriates you. It infuriated me too.
I could have sworn nicotine was technically a stimulant because it has vasoconstrictive properties.
And I don’t know anyone who has ever put off going to sleep in order to take more depressants.
Nicotine is absolutely classified as a stimulant.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard a user misclassify it—I imagine it has something to do with smoking or dipping mitigating withdrawal (thus relaxing) more than the drug’s actual effects.
I fucked it up - thanks for pointing it out, fixed it. (I switched them because smoking a cig relaxes me quite a bit.)
Not only can alcohol be used as a date rape drug, it’s the most common one. It’s safer for the assailant to give you a stronger drink than you think you’re getting than to give you something like roofies. Additionally bartenders will gladly do it as it’s not uncommon for someone to want a double.
You sound really judgey about forget-me-nows
“I’ve made a huge mistake…”
The “gateway” drug thing was taught to me through DARE in the 90s. But has been confirmed propoganda for decades. Calling Cannabis (marijuana is not the proper name) a “gateway” drug is like saying water or air are “gateway” drugs. Sure, a crack head has probably smoked weed, but that isn’t what got them into crack.
I would guess that these materials are, either, very old or they categorize cannabis differently because it is so common. It doesn’t help that it is illegal in half the country and legal in the other half. So any state with cannabis not, at least, decriminalized will still have the talking points for the 1930s.
Thankfully, she knows from her father, who uses cannabis medicinally, that it is not a “gateway drug.” Especially since the pain I am using it to treat now was one which a doctor originally tried and failed to treat by throwing multiple opioids at it and I’m not doing fentanyl today despite that. Two days of withdrawal was a bitch though.
I’m glad to hear you are off the opioid train. Have lost family members to it and my father is currently been on them for years. I tried to get him on the THC train, he even has a medical card, but he claims to not like the effects. I live in a recently legal state so I’m waiting until I can show him a store with a wide variety to try. I know there is some strain that will help with his pain and suffering without the effects he didn’t like.
I’m luckier than others in that I hate the effects of opioids, so unless it is actually doing some pain killing (fentanyl did wonders when I was in the ER with kidney stones), I just wouldn’t want it in my system.
But I also know that there are plenty of people it does work for who use it because they are legitimately in pain and either were hooked on them by a doctor and can’t get off or just can’t afford an alternative other than to score something illegally to solve their pain issues due to our capitalist healthcare system.
I realize you have to simplify things for kids sometimes, but this is not the way to do it.
Are you sure you’re taking enough?
Taking enough what, weed or opioids?
Yes
Seriously. How undereducated is the general population to still be willfully ignorant that “marijuana” is literally BS Spanish “Mary Jane” and not what anyone prior to the utter failure that still is the “War on Drugs” has ever called any part of the plant? FFS. 🤷🏼♂️
They put pcp alongside shrooms and LSD. That’s insane.
Should be with GHB and DXM. Dissociatives are fun.
brb, going to the club with my friends so we can do steroids, hopefully I can find some psychotic marijuanas too
