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Comment by master-lincoln | Hacker News Reader

How would it clearly be a gateway drug? I don't think this concept even makes sense. Sure if contact to X also brings you in contact with Y, you could see X as gateway to Y. But what contact to other drugs you have depends on where you acquire the Marijuana. If I home-grow I see none. In a pharmacy I need prescriptions to access their other drugs, so also not a gateway. It's only problematic when acquired via dealers who also sell other stuff. When I tried buying weed on the street, vendors didn't offer me other drugs.

I agree with your other points though.

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I think when pot was illegal it was much more likely to be a 'gateway' because it's connecting users to other illegal elements. The pot dealer may also deal in MDMA, lsd, coke, etc...

Now that pot is legal in so many places, it's less likely to gateway to anything - like alcohol.

> it's less likely to gateway to anything - like alcohol

That's a bad example to make your point. Alcohol is absolutely a gateway drug. I know many a cigarette smoker who had their first cig puff while intoxicated around other drinkers who were smoking.

When a commonplace and socially accepted drug like alcohol can amplify poor judgement and inhibition, the sky's the limit for what unfolds next.

I mean in my case, I never even considered drugs until I started smoking weed in college. So it was definitely a gateway drug for me. At first glance, weed has little to no noticeable downsides. This made me think that the other drugs must be the same way. It led me into a drug abuse phase of my life that I still struggle with. Prior to that, I barely did drugs at all and had no real inclination to do so.

I think part of it is the crowd you end up in when you smoke weed. Unsurprisingly, drug use lends itself to putting you in situations with other drug users. These users often completely ignore, leave out, or outright lie about the downsides of these drugs, from chronic weed use to LSD.

I don't agree with you, but I don't think that your experience is invalid. Just trying to understand your point, but don't you think that calling weed a gateway drug sounds like propaganda when a lot of addicted people started with alcohol and nobody dares to say that alcohol is a gateway drug? I'm not saying that you are doing propaganda, I just don't get this argument when alcohol, in my opinion, should have this title. And I say that as someone who doesn't use both, so I don't have a horse in this race

i think alcohol is also a gateway drug. anything that creates REAL addiction/disinhibition/escapism (not food). paradoxically i don't think cigarettes are a gateway drug, but weed is because of how it works

I think the percentage of people who drink alcohol and have never done any drugs is >50%, and I would bet that the percentage of people who smoke weed (not just once) who have also done other drugs is like 95%. There are plenty of people who will binge drink every weekend but think that smoking a joint is too far. I find that strange, but it is surprisingly common.

Let me set it straight. Alcohol is a gateway to alcoholism, weed is a gateway to coke and heroin. It is all about "what other things are sold by the supplier".

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