Pretty mind-numbing to see people still peddling gateway theory. Is there any real link between recreational pot and opioid addiction in any meaningful, causative way?
> "As for connecting marijuana to the legal opioid crisis, Spicer has it exactly backwards. Greater access to marijuana has actually led to declines in opioid use, overdoses and other problems."
“So really,” continued Eric, “I should be saying sorry to you, for jumping to the wrong conclusion. Instead of considering all the evidence, I just applied some common sense—otherwise known as prejudice—and came up with a totally wrong answer.”
― Lucy Hawking, George's Secret Key to the Universe
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/857108-george-s-secret...
Where it breaks down is when you draw the correlation as "most hard drug users have tried pot, so most of the people who tried pot become hardcore drug users". OF course we know that not to be the case.
However if you only use the first part of the definition (as many anti marijuana advocates do) then you must acknowledge the amount of hard drug users who smoke cigarettes ( a lot ) therefore cigarettes are also a gateway drug. Still legal.
I too am surprised this theory is still being peddled.
Personal/anecdotal:
I worked near addicts in treatment for a few years, (no I am not an expert or counselor it was a tech role) and I noticed many of them smoked cigarettes. Many of them still smoked weed too for medical purposes and it simply didn't have the adverse affects on their life that the "other" drugs did (heroin, meth, etc). It's simply not in the same class.
I'm not a pot smoker and never have been, but I strongly agree with legalization based on what I've seen.
i.e. nothing at all to do with cannabis