From what I have seen yes, that is what I am saying.

 

Bloodstain. People will often use hand rolling tobacco, this generally has the same harmful ingredients as in regular cigarettes.

 

 

 

I am talking from personal experience here, I'm not grabbing quotes from around the internet to prove my point, trying to find out how people smoke it, or how its rolled etc. I won't go into details on how often, or how long it has been since i did the majority, but i will say, I am speaking from personal experience on how weed is smoked.

 

 

I will also add on an additional strand, this is actually a strand that supports the legalisation (not the smoking though). If legalised, it wil hopefully stop the way that it leads on to harder drugs. A lot of people say it does not, but out of all the people I know who have done weed (not the ones who try once or twice, I mean people who do regularly), at least half have ended up doing harder drugs at one point or another. Usually this is because they will strike up a bit of a relationship with whoever their link is and will end up going for something stronger at some point. I know most of these never would have if they had not started smoking weed regularly. If it were to be legalised, they would have no reason to know the links, so would not get into anything stronger.

A high number of people i've met that smoke cannabis mix it with some tobacco. I'm sure there was some reason for it but i can't remember.

It also seems to be a more common practice in Europe than America.

Yeah, because I've NEVER seen it happen or done it myself. I usually go for a larger pipe or water pipe.

If legalised, it wil hopefully stop the way that it leads on to harder drugs. A lot of people say it does not, but out of all the people I know who have done weed (not the ones who try once or twice, I mean people who do regularly), at least half have ended up doing harder drugs at one point or another.

 

Gateway theory is full of holes. It is hardly a solid theory.

 

And sorry if I prefer studies done by scientists and experts rather than anecdotal evidence.

I often find the best way to judge something is from personal experience rather than reports and studies, especially when it comes to drugs on a ground level, as so many things can effect the results.

 

 

But as i said, I was talking from personal experience, and i know that a lot who have gone on to harder drugs would not have if they had not regularly smoked weed, and had regular contact with their links. You can say that has flaws and is a bad theory, but that is the truth, they would not have had the means or had the know-how as to how to get the drugs.

It sounds like there's a weakness in that person's personality, rather than a harmful effect of marijuana. I've smoked every day for a few years now and I know enough not to mess with hard drugs. I don't want to get addicted to anything that will destroy my life. It's a matter of knowing what you're getting into and it is a choice to do those harder drugs.

I often find the best way to judge something is from personal experience rather than reports and studies, especially when it comes to drugs on a ground level, as so many things can effect the results.

 

 

But as i said, I was talking from personal experience, and i know that a lot who have gone on to harder drugs would not have if they had not regularly smoked weed, and had regular contact with their links. You can say that has flaws and is a bad theory, but that is the truth, they would not have had the means or had the know-how as to how to get the drugs.

 

One of my favorite quotes on the subject:

 

It is hardly a revelation that people who use one of the least popular drugs are likely to use the more popular ones

 

Marijuana is simply the most common denominator.

 

In the case of your friends, I guess that isn't really gateway theory. Replace marijuana with any drug and you will probably get the same result. I really doubt that it was the marijuana that caused them to try new drugs, as they would be actively seeking new drugs without being peer pressured by their dealer. The sides of this part of the debate are still really divided and I don't think much research has been done in it

 

It sounds like there's a weakness in that person's personality, rather than a harmful effect of marijuana. I've smoked every day for a few years now and I know enough not to mess with hard drugs. I don't want to get addicted to anything that will destroy my life. It's a matter of knowing what you're getting into and it is a choice to do those harder drugs.

 

^ that's a better explanation of what I was trying to get at

"Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives." -Ronald Reagan

 

This quote sums up my thoughts on the issue quite well. Ironically Ronald Reagan was a major supporter of the 'war on drugs' and escalated it during his time in office.

 

"In 1986, Reagan signed a drug enforcement bill that budgeted $1.7 billion dollars to fund the War on Drugs and specified a mandatory minimum penalty for drug offenses. The bill was criticized for promoting significant racial disparities in the prison population and critics also charged that the policies did little to reduce the availability of drugs on the street, while resulting in a great financial burden for America."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan

It wasn't a harmful effect of the drug directly that caused them (multiple people, not one) to get into harder drugs. As i said, not all of the people i know what have regularly smoked weed have got into harder drugs, but the ones that did, the weed is the reason, but not due to it's direct effects. It is down to getting to know the dealer and knowing what they have to offer, having a moment of weakness etc. If you take out the dealer due to it being legalised, then you take out any chance of the harder drugs.

so long as it doesn't cost a ton, sure. I personally want to try it but there's 3 factors.

 

1) The only people I actually see with it are 16 year olds, I'm not asking a kid JUST to try something new.

2) Illegal. I dont wanna be jailed or changed as it both screws my life up, AND I dont even have the money to a fine.

3)Parents, I'll be living off the streets if my parents ever caught me doing any drugs despite being almost 19, as long as im stuck under their roof, their rules go.

Half the guys in my Tafe class do/did Marijuana, ask them. :P

 

Trust me when I say that if my family found out, the ramifications for me would be alot worse that for you. :(

"Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives." -Ronald Reagan

 

This quote sums up my thoughts on the issue quite well. Ironically Ronald Reagan was a major supporter of the 'war on drugs' and escalated it during his time in office.

 

"In 1986, Reagan signed a drug enforcement bill that budgeted $1.7 billion dollars to fund the War on Drugs and specified a mandatory minimum penalty for drug offenses. The bill was criticized for promoting significant racial disparities in the prison population and critics also charged that the policies did little to reduce the availability of drugs on the street, while resulting in a great financial burden for America."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan

 

So what is your stance on marijuana? I'm getting mixed signals.

 

 

 

 

 

Trust me when I say that if my family found out, the ramifications for me would be alot worse that for you. :(

 

This may [bleep] me/come back to bite me in the [wagon] in the future, but my grandparents smoke weed when they go to Jamaica apparently.

I think it's a good idea not to smoke until you're at least a senior in high school. When you're older, you see it in a completely different way than if you smoke just to feel "high" when you're 15 or 16. In my opinion, smoking weed should be used to compliment your liefestyle and improve it, but not change it.

 

 

Trust me when I say that if my family found out, the ramifications for me would be alot worse that for you. :(

 

This may [bleep] me/come back to bite me in the [wagon] in the future, but my grandparents smoke weed when they go to Jamaica apparently.

Oh nice. I recently read a Digg article, where the guy found out that his (and many other) parents who are at the age where they have retired, were looking at drugs as a recreational thing to do. I'd post the link if I hadn't recently erased my history.

 

 

Trust me when I say that if my family found out, the ramifications for me would be alot worse that for you. :(

 

This may [bleep] me/come back to bite me in the [wagon] in the future, but my grandparents smoke weed when they go to Jamaica apparently.

Oh nice. I recently read a Digg article, where the guy found out that his (and many other) parents who are at the age where they have retired, were looking at drugs as a recreational thing to do. I'd post the link if I hadn't recently erased my history.

 

Yeah, I thought it was pretty funny considering my grandma is super prude/traditional usually, not to mention one of her sons is a cop. I'm going to apply for the police when I finish university so I hope it doesn't disqualify me.

Nicotine is in the tobacco, which is mixed in when smoking weed to make it burn, making it just as addictive.

 

Not everyone smokes weed with tobacco :/

It's needs to be legalized, and industrialized. Hemp would bring the economy to a level no one has ever seen before, millions upon millions of new jobs could be created. Many imports would be cut off thus saving billions of dollars because you can make almost anything out of hemp. Not to mention it is 100 percent safe and is the most biodegradable resource on the planet. The health care issue of the united states is a joke, or more of an expensive outrage. Think of all the pills and other harmful medicines could be replaced solely by cannabis. Hemp oil could replace gasoline by upgrading to cars that can run it. These are just the few examples that hemp is useful for...

 

..Or you can you just conform to society and become brainwashed by the "above the influence" ads portraying you to this Mexican slang term "Marijuana" as something evil. I'm glad the tobacco and alcohol companies waste millions of your dollars daily funding these ads.

"Is marijuana a gateway drug?"

 

That

 

 

In that that's the greatest argument marijuana opponents have going for them. Of course, "greatest" is relative. It's full of so much BS, I can only imagine how much those people have to defecate to get rid of so much crap. If it is a gateway drug, then you could also say that tobacco is a gateway drug. Obviously, more people that smoke/chew tobacco move on to more harmful drugs when compared to those that smoke marijuana. Considering that this made-up value isn't a percentage of how many people smoke weed/tobacco, it's still a better argument than assuming something's a gateway drug.

Legalize it!

It'll fix the economy.

i'd just like to throw in my 2 cents here. marijuana is great. i've never felt pressured to go in to harder drugs. the only things i've done are because i wanted to try them, like weed, and percocet, and an oxycodone pill. the pills were free, and they were amazing, but i'm not going to mess with that stuff all the time. that's just stupid unless you need it. they were fun though, but don't do them. they are addictive. weed is not addictive. i felt more desire for pills from just one of them than i ever have for weed. the addiction factor just doesn't exist on weed, i quit for almost a year because i was asked to. i had no withdrawals, nothing. it's easy. personally, i say legalize it. it will benefit the economy and it'll benefit many colleges in the united states, all my college friends smoke weed, lol.

If anything, the coffeeshop system here has prevented marijuana from being a gateway drug. If marijuana is illegal and you have to buy it from some dealer on a street corner, the step to hard drugs is much smaller than if it's available off a menu in a clean establishment that follows strict health codes.

First of all, I would like to state that I personally found that article to be written in a very bias manner towards the use of marijuana.

 

Now that I have that out of the way, I do believe that marijuana should be legalized. Why? Because of the ridiculous tax that would be put on it and help pump more money into useful government spending. I would rather see marijuana being smoked around me rather than cigarettes because I know that that substance will not give me as much harm as the cigarette smoke would have.

 

Note: I don't want anyone to get the idea that I think that marijuana smoking is harmless. I've seen it wreck the lives of a few close friends and I know that inhaling smoke into your lungs is going to be bad for you no matter what.

I know full well that on its own, it can be beneficial. What i have been saying for the last page, is that smoking it as the majority of users do, is like smoking half a cigarette, which can cause cancer.

 

As I said, I am ok for it being legalised as long as it is kept illegal to smoke. It's all fine and dandy saying on its own, used in the right way it is perfectly harmless, but used in the way a majority would, it can cause untold harm. It's like saying owning a knife can be fine, used in the right way for cutting food can be fine, but use it to stab somebody as it isn't.

 

I don't get why you bolded the half a cigarette part, as the majority rolled will have as much tobacco in as half a cigarette. You can say use vaporizers and such, but only a massive minority do, using tobacco is the easiest thing, and is the thing that will kill.

 

I don't see why you're saying smoking weed is bad when it's the tobacco causing the harm. Besides which, the government has no business telling people what they can and cannot do to their body; besides, that's like saying we should ban everything that can cause harm if there's a safer alternative. I mean, why do we even have motorbikes? Cars are safer!

 

Untold harm is very unlikely. This website has quite a few links related to the health effects of marijuana. This website (one of the ones linked in the previous link) shows that marijuana is less harmful to the lungs than cigarettes. It also shows that marijuana smokers smoke far less than tobacco smokers (an average of 3 - 4 joints a day compared to 25 cigarettes a day - so even if it is the norm to smoke half-tobacco joints (it certainly isn't where I live, but I don't dispute that it's the norm where you live), it is hardly as deadly as smoking half a cigarette, namely because weed smokers smoke far less).

 

It's nice and all if you want to save people from themselves, but that's not really your business. Just imagine if someone started (arbitrarily, it would seem) telling you what you could and couldn't do to your own body.

The government has a lot of business in telling people what they can and cannot do to their body, especially here in the UK where the government pays for all our healthcare. Ok the money still comes from the people, but unnecessary expenditures that can be avoided are definitely reason to get involved. Well, that's a bit of a bad comparison with the cars and bikes, because used perfectly safely, the bike can be just as safe as the car, and can do no damage to you through years of riding.

 

I'm not sure how people are not understanding what I'm saying, so i'll try and make it clear.

 

Smoking a joint, half weed, half tobacco = half the tobacco of a cigarette = smoking half a cigarette. THAT is what I'm saying should not be legalised. The gov is trying to crack down on all forms of smoking with tobacco, so not until pigs fly will they allow that. Any joint rolled with tobacco should never be legalised.

Yes, the government pays for it, but like you said, the money comes from the people, so the government isn't paying for it - they're making the people pay for it. They are simply a middle-man, if you will. Besides, couldn't they just not subsidise healthcare for self inflicted harm? They already do this to an extent by denying transplants to alcoholics, drug addicts etc. so why not make people who smoke pay for their own healthcare for smoking related illnesses?

 

And a bike will never be as safe as a car, even a minor collision on a bike will cause more damage than the same collision in a car, and you have absolutely no control over the actions of other road users. So it's really not a bad comparison.

 

And sorry for the misunderstanding, I assumed you meant all forms of smoking. But even still, I don't agree with the government making tobacco illegal - but I guess that's for another thread.

The government has a lot of business in telling people what they can and cannot do to their body, especially here in the UK where the government pays for all our healthcare. Ok the money still comes from the people, but unnecessary expenditures that can be avoided are definitely reason to get involved. Well, that's a bit of a bad comparison with the cars and bikes, because used perfectly safely, the bike can be just as safe as the car, and can do no damage to you through years of riding.

 

I'm not sure how people are not understanding what I'm saying, so i'll try and make it clear.

 

Smoking a joint, half weed, half tobacco = half the tobacco of a cigarette = smoking half a cigarette. THAT is what I'm saying should not be legalised. The gov is trying to crack down on all forms of smoking with tobacco, so not until pigs fly will they allow that. Any joint rolled with tobacco should never be legalised.

 

I live in Canada, national healthcare. You're telling me that the money the government makes off the marijuana will be less than the money they have to spend on the damage weed apparently does? And I don't know how you don't get that it's not just tobacco in a cigarette, it's not like smoking half a cigarette.

Not everyone smokes weed with tobacco :/

 

Not everyone wants to get completely off their head either.