The classification of cannabis changed to incarnate more black people. It’s a historical fact and it’s sad that many people don’t know that.
I believe originally, it was used to incarcerate Latin Americans, hence the naming of “Marihuana” and later, “Marijuana” to make it sound more Spanish.
It wasn’t just race, it was Black People and anyone else that associated with them. If someone went against authority and smoked weed, they were a danger to authority.
It was a litmus test
But pretty fucking close for .ml account
Hippies too
Just gonna drop this quote form a Nixon aide here:
“You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did”
The war on drugs was a war on blacks and anti-Vietnam activists.
I don’t think those are “gateways” though. I think the real gateway is when you try something that you’re taught is vilified and told it will make you stupid and ruin your life, but then all it really does is chill you out. The gateway is realizing you’ve been lied to and you wonder what else was a lie so you try other things. Alcohol if anything has the opposite problem.
100%. There’s also the fact that when weed is illegal, the only way to get it is through someone who likely sells other illegal substances so it’s not hard to start messing around with other things after smoking for a bit.
Weed is only a gateway drug when its illegal
Crazy I had to scroll down this far for the reason it’s actually called a gateway drug.
Well, the ACTUAL reason it’s called a gateway drug is fear mongering.
It goes along with how they categorize cannabis as “drug” while alcohol for some reason gets it’s own special category.
DARE programs referring to “drugs, alcohol, and tobacco,” and middle school me thinking “I’m pretty sure those are all drugs…”
Alcohol isn’t a drug, it’s a drink.
Edit: I guess the niche 90s British comedy references don’t fly too well on the fediverse.
Alcohol is a psychoactive drug
If you’re gonna do a quote, the use quotation marks. It doesn’t matter if it’s old or recent, just saves everyone time and effort by not misunderstanding you.
Yeh, I shouldn’t really be surprised!
Because one is legal and one isn’t…
If alcohol or tobacco was illegal, they’d be treated like illegal drugs
Laws aren’t always correct.
Do you understand it now?
That’s circular reasoning. “It’s considered a drug because it’s illegal, and it’s illegal because it’s considered a drug.”
It hard to start somewhere. Look back in history and see where it started.
So if cannabis is a “drug” because it’s illegal and alcohol is “alcohol” because it’s legal, why is ibuprofen a “drug” and not “alcohol”? Or maybe, did you misunderstand something, and the condescending tone is not only embarrassing, but completely unwarranted?
No, not really.
Because one is legal and one isn’t…
Both alcohol and cannabis are legal.
But they are still treated very differently legally despite both being drugs.
This is so dumb, and both of you are very obviously 'Murica brained where you just can’t think of any difference there is oitside the US. Both Alcohol and Nicotine are drugs, and so are medications, they’re just legal drugs. It’s not “not a drug” and “drug (meaning illegal”, it’s “legal drug” and “illegal drug”.
Another thing to note is that fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine are all legal for medical purposes, but are considered “drugs” in the illicit sense.
Calling alcohol and nicotine the first substances that most people abuse when caffeine exists is the biggest win in propaganda history.
No one has ever said “man I love coffee, I should try ecstasy next!” Lol
You don’t know my life
I’m sure more than a few people have said “coffee ain’t doin’ it for me anymore; I should try cocaine or meth,” though.
Unable to cite sources on this, I swear I’m not pulling it out of my ass and I did hear it on broadcast news like in the early 00’s…but adderal is (or at least, was) the most abused prescription drug by “soccer moms”, so, I wouldn’t be surprised.
nobody has said it because the same person never sold both
if you had to go to the ecstasy guy to buy your coffee too, then you’d be much more likely to try ecstasy as well
What? I’m confused at what point you’re trying to make lol
imagine a scenario, coffee is illegal. you can’t buy it in a normal shop, but the same guy that sells every other illegal substance has it. and you have to go to that guy to buy some coffee
even though coffee is not similar in its effect to any harder drug by going out to buy it you’re gaining the skill of obtaining illegal substances, and also put yourself in a place where you can get a variety of them
as you’re buying your coffee your drug dealer tells you “try this, it’ll make you feel really good” and you know what? society’s already lied to you about coffee being bad, maybe they’re lying about the ecstasy thing too, you already trust this guy, he’s been selling you good coffee, so might as well try something new and exciting too eh?
and to be even more blunt, what i’m trying to say is that it’s not the substance itself that makes a drug be a “gateway” it’s the way you obtain it
if weed was perfectly legal and sold freely then it would not longer be a gateway drug, because as you try it you don’t gain the experience and skill of obtaining illegal substances, nor do you get placed in a position where you can grab something extra with your purchase
Damn dude that’s a lot of text but I can’t take anyone seriously who thinks coffee can in any way shape or form lead to drug use lmao idc how well thought out your thesis is, it’s an insane hypothesis.
Caffeine has plenty of health benefits also. Forcing the working class to rely on it to survive is bad, but whatever you’re saying is ridiculous.
i suggest you actually read what i wrote, instead of making yourself look like a fool
No but people have said if you take ten wake me ups (caffeine pills) it feels like cocaine
So this is what coke is like
These caffeine pills dont do that for me anymore
Maybe I should try coke
Source: my social circle in high school
You know anyone that’s never had coffee before they’ve tried x?
Know anyone that’s never had pizza before they tried heroin?
Pretty sure milk is the ultimate gateway drug.
Casein
Coffee isn’t really a mind-altering drug in the same way, and people take it for it’s effects recreationally. Getting drunk, though? It’s not for me, but people do that for fun, and then look to other ways to have fun in the same kinda way. All the sudden…
There is a whole merchandise category about people not being able to function without coffee but I’ve never seen a mug that says “don’t talk to me unless I’ve bumped a rail”
That’s mostly just people not having a personality outside of the priducts that they conume.
It 100% is a mind-altering drug, a body-altering one too. You can get super fucked up from caffeine, and overdose to a point of death (which you can’t with cannabis). Caffeine has little effect on me and many others but it has major effect on a big part of humanity (and other living beings). Some can’t drink coffee or energy drinks because it fuckes them up so much, and others get so addicted that they ruin their health from it.
I didn’t drink coffee until I was thirty.
How about soda?
Not by choice. I guess in a float, but root beer isn’t caffeinated. I preferred herbal tea. I was a very edgy child.
Caffeine: am I a joke to you?
Apparentely it’s only considered a dependence and not an addiction, even though there are a lot of discussions about it.
Pathologically reinforced caffeine use induces dependence, but not an addiction.[13] For a drug to induce an addiction from repeated use at sufficiently high doses, it must activate the brain’s reward circuitry, particularly the mesolimbic pathway.[13]
Been smoking weed for over 50 years and I never found that gate!
That’s because you were too stoned to look for it. You set us up man.
I didn’t know I was supposed to be looking for the sumbitch! I usually just climbed over the fence.
The gateway is having to deal with shitty people that used to be in those crowds.
Its becoming less of an issue as more people use it responsibly like social drinkers and you dont have to deal with a complete waste of space to society to get it or be around others who partake.
Reefer madness is bullshit, but its also not 100% harmless either. Chronic use of THC still almost certainly causes GABA disregulation for instance.
You have a stupid majority who act like weed is just as bad as heroine and meth and THE gateway drug, but the potheads who are just horrible people spouting about how its completely harmless aren’t helping the cause either.
Also people with mental illness in their family history should probably not use it. But that is true for all drugs, including alcohol.
The war on drugs has always been bullshit. I wonder how many bosses have said “drug free workplace” or principals saying “drug free campus” while holding a cup of coffee.
I’m not for prohibition whatsoever, but have you seen the difference between someone who chose coffee as their drug of choice and spend decades drinking it versus smoking meth?
I’m making fun of all the propaganda.
For example: Someone who is against the justice system as it is isn’t advocating for murder to be legal.
Don’t you dare discompare a cup of coffee to my morning meth
Depends if they’re using an intoxicating amount as well. Plenty of folks around on a dose of amphetamines that would have you and me stimming our brains out. For work that doesn’t involve dangerous machines or the safety of others, I say, As long as I can’t tell you’re high on something and it’s not effecting your work, whatever makes your day more enjoyable have at.
But let’s compare the potential for abuse for a moment
Alcohol and nicotine are the first step in the path of despair. But cannabis is the gateway to a good time. Change my mind.
Eh alcohol can be enjoyed in moderation. Personally I massively prefer it to weed
Same. I’m not actually a fan of weed. No ill effects, just not more enjoyable to not consuming it for me, and less enjoyable than the right amount of alcohol (but much more enjoyable than too much alcohol, so balance is key).
Are you really having a good time when the munchies hit but you’re out of snacc?
A little planning ahead can help with that.
A tip that has helped me a lot with munchies: instead of chips and taco bell, reach for some fruit. Solves munchies and cottonmouth.
I don’t get the munchies, so there’s that.
You forgot caffeine in the meme
Refined sugar.
Literally classified as a unscheduled drug but people give it a pass cuz ur more “productive”. More people have died from caffeine overdose then weed overdose.
More people have died from caffeine overdose then weed overdose.
Sounds like a rectal fact, got a source?
It’s true, mostly because the LD 50 for THC is like a kg/kg (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK563174/). It’s so astronomical that you would die from many other issues before thc became a concern. Caffeine actually has a pretty low LD 50 even among many illicit drugs, it’s just more widespread so people aren’t incentivized to take hyper-concentrated doses of it.
Lol ok troll
Caffine. The kids drug of choice
“Someone had to say it”
-some guy, not even within the first 10 people to say it
As someone that’s smoked weed for 20 years, I think it’s too potent now and consider the plant to be something that got abused by humans the same way humans abuse everything they touch.
Don’t be a stoner.
Use it as medicine.
Stoners are junkies.
After 20 years I’m finally realizing this and using it more as only medicine.
I remember a quote I read a looong time ago… “If your eyes get red you are abusing it.” From that point on when your eyes are deeply red, it’s not medicine, it’s an escape.
Also… The side effects of capitalism are a gateway drug because capitalism gives people the want to escape.
Its been my experience that 125cc motorcycles, Cessna 172’s, DJI Mini-2 drones, and Ender-3’s are also gateway drugs. Less illegal but just as damaging financially.
I often call e-bikes gateway drugs to motorcycles :)
I’m older, for me normal bikes were gateway drugs to motorcycles.
On the other hand, for me normal bicycles were gateway drugs to even more expensive normal bicycles…
It is a gateway drug, not the. But it is the one that forwards most people to harder drugs.
nictoine would be a gateway drug too if you had to meet with a shady dude in an alleyway or get bitcoin to buy it
Since weed is still illegal in many/most places, getting your hands on some could also introduce you to criminal elements that can provide a shorter route to harder drugs.
I write that as I recall joining a buddy as he went to some guys apartment to buy weed, and in the living room we were met with the dealer casually shooting heroin, asking if we’d like some. I can’t recall ever having a stronger “holly shit I need to get out of here”-feeling.
I suddenly felt way too close to a road I did not want to go down.
