I think it’s complicated. I don’t want to make generalizations about things I don’t know about, so I’ll just say you can easily have a person who thinks both that: 1) sending kids to prison for using drugs is creating a mess of society, and; 2) that their kids better be studying hard and making something of themselves rather than wasting their time with drugs.
I think if you have values we might have called conservative before conservative meant “anti-fact grifter” (e.g. personal responsibility, meaning in tradition, duty to family and community) it would be easy to want to hear how drug policy could change to lessen the impact on communities but still be against permissiveness when it comes to drugs.
As someone who has never actually used pot, wow do I love the smell. When I catch a whiff of it on the street I reflexively inhale deeply. Last week I was walking down the street and ended up intentionally walking six feet down wind from someone smoking a joint so I could get the second hand smoke. At some point I’m going to have to take all these signals my body is sending me and start using cannabis.
He has spent his entire career enabling Republican policies and stamping down hard on anything to the left of Reagan. I’d say that makes him a hard core conservative
As the friend of a cannabis researcher at a major university, I’d say this is all true - especially the part about what we DON’T know. She sees mostly university students, and there are troubling aspects with how potent this stuff is, and how unregulated dosage is.
So, Biden’s not totally wrong, in my opinion. Who knows, it could be more helpful than harmful for mental illness. But the science has not been done yet, it’s underway now.
Depending on how one wishes to define the basically meaning less term “gateway drug,” marijuana is arguably the gateway drug. Here’s how I tech this conclusion:
If a gateway drug is defined as one that introduces someone to mind alteration, marijuana is the most readily available drug to young people. In many ways, it is more readily available than alcohol, despite or perhaps because of the (still widespread) illegality of it, as well as its ease of carry and transfer. If someone learns from marijuana that they like altering their mind, then they may choose to try other drugs that alter their mind. Whether this leads them to adopt those other drugs for regular use, one could argue that pot opened the gate for other drugs.
This is probably the case, yes. All the people I’ve known who’ve become psychotic also came from a familiy with a higher incidence of psychotic episodes. Still, as far as I know, the current scientific hypothesis is that the THC can trigger the psychos, which might otherwise not have manifested itself.
Also, people who have used too much pot in their adolescent years are often quite recognizable later in life, even if they have stopped for years. Something in the way they move & talk. Of course the same is true for alcohol (probably even more so). I’m all for legalizing pot, because keeping it illegal only places it outside of society, increasing the risk of abuse/overuse. Heck, I’m all for legalizing all drugs, for the same reasons.
The gate swings in both directions. I’ve personnaly witnessed my father start on pot and end up on meth (and other stuff along the way). Pot was a gateway to harder drugs for him. Part of that was the “Hey, this is fun, what else is fun?” and part of that was associating with people who had harder drugs.
But the other direction appears to exist too. Reduced use of alcohol and hard drugs.
All too many people seem to form their opinion of pot (pro or con) as a gateway drug based on their stance on pot (pro or con) That’s not smart. It’s not a sin to accept that it is a gateway (not a highway) to other drugs AND accept that on balance pot is still ok to legalize.
I use this when talking to my kids about drugs. “Why do people do drugs? Because they are fun. But there can be consequences. More so with some than others. And often the fun fades, but the consequences remain. Addiction runs in our family, so be very very careful.”
It is a fact that after 60 our brains seem to freeze up, and learning new concepts is very difficult or impossible. That’s why learning a completely new language after 60 is impossible for most people.
Biden will never be able to understand just how out of touch he is. It’s a physiology thing, not an ageist thing.
The same physiological constraints apply to Sanders and Warren - but they’ve been progressive for a long time, and their positions are not new to them. They were ahead of the game already, so they don’t sound as creaky and dated as Biden does.
I’d prefer, though, someone with a younger brain, who can adapt and learn when they encounter totally new challenges. We need a younger President.
The problem with using the term “gateway” in relation to pot is that it implies a causality. That makes no more sense that stating that baby food is a “gateway” to ham and eggs. That gateway term was used originally to scare people, to demonize users, and to justify criminalization. An actual causation has never been proven, either physically or statistically.
I can only speak anecdotally from years of experience, and from extensive exposure to others who have the same experiences. People with incipient or active psychological problems and/or addictive personalities should not use any mind or body altering substances without medical support and observation. But for the overwhelming majority of humans, pot has medicinal and relaxation and enjoyment properties that are positive and benign. As do other psychotropic substances.
It is estimated that 100,000,000 persons in the US have some experience with pot to date in the US alone over the last 60 years or so. If the forces of criminalization had allowed true scientific study to take place, we would already have all the real data that we need to understand its effects. Instead, we have dinosaurs like Biden talking out his ass about something that he chooses to not understand, and which he chooses to not learn more about. It’s another unforced error in the Biden history.
Denise Kandel coined the term, often associated with marijuana, in a research paper 40 years ago. But her work suggested nicotine, not pot, was most likely to lead to the use of harder drugs.
Why does “gateway” imply causality? I agree, that would make no sense. A gateway would seem to be something that opens up additional scenarios and possibilities, but doesn’t cause any of them. A gate. Like buying a Harley seems to be a gateway to buying Harley merchandise, but doesn’t cause anyone to buy that stuff. Or stop non-Harley owners from buying it.
Honest question: If gateway is a poor term, then what would you propose? There is a link (even if vanishingly small). How do you avoid either ignoring the link, or hyping it?
