i think for addiction yeah your right but my parents were wondferful and I still do a lot of drugs and so far haven't been addicted. But it might be because my whole family doesnt beleive in god and no false values were forced upon me, but thats a topic for another thread.

I think it was a gateway drug for me after doing it for a while i really liked the high and started wondering what the other drugs would be like so i began to try them got stuck on one for a while had some drug counceling and i have an "addictive personality" so i gotta be careful with what i do so i pretty much just stick to weed most the time. I think the familly life has something to do with it when i had a drug problem i was living with my father and he also had a drug problem at the time with pills/crack the thing is if you find you are doing anything that is physically addictive you cant do it to much or addiction is going to take place best thing to do is stick to the reefer

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Alcohol = the real gateway drug if such a thing exists. Extremly addictive personalities are the ones who wind up in the street with a needle in their arm.

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Seems that this'll go on a lot, 3 pages is a bit to catch up on, but i'd like to put in my opinion first.

I believe that the people who are going to do hard drugs, weed is not a catalyst at all in the process. it's just a means to an end, when it becomes a "gateway drug". when weed is actually enjoyed and all that, i don't htink that any enticement to harder drugs occurs. also, it has a lot more to do with personality and outside forces (such as an abusive family, perhaps) than it does with the drugs.

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The only other drug I honestly was addicted to was cocaine. I tried Pot waaaaay before I tried coke, but I became a cokehead before I became a pothead. The only reason I'm not a cokehead anymore is because I quit my job and didn't have any money to buy more. I remember I used to coke it at work with my managers... Another time me and three friends snorted 500 dollars in one night (christmas madness)... Although I never said I'm stoppiing coke, with time being away from the coke, I realized how much of a worthless drug it is. Pot you can eat, sleep, watch movies just basically have a blast. WIth coke the only good trip you can have is doing more coke. I'm glad I stick to pot but I'm pretty sure I'll try coke again and when I do I hope I don't enjoy it... So in a way, pot made me want to experiment with other drugs, but once I did I realized pot is the king shit.

I get the shivers whenever I think about coke...

tried weed first and its never incouraged me to take anything else can get all the buzzs from weed from narcotic to light trippy to uncontroleable laughing. iv'e tried crack and its sh#t. iv'e tried smoking smack and its sh#t just made me feel like spewing all the time. tried speed and it was O.K. BUT WITH POWDERS YOU DON'T KNOW WHATS IN THEM THATS THE PROBLEM. (could be snorting anything) tried acid but got tolernt after two trips. (waste of money) also tried ecstacy but never got a buzz. but weed gives me all the buzzes i want and like. if you smoke good weed you don't need anything else, although i do like a few beers now and again.!!!!!

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you mustn't have read the post right.

In my case I say that weed was the gateway drug because it was the first thing I took that made me high.

ciggies never did anything to me except give me cancer, and not all ciggie smokers smoke pot.

thats why I say weed is the gateway (somtimes, if your in a bad environment)

dont think I'm going to stop smoking either anytime soon, just keep the shit away from the kids!

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i think its easy for ppl to try other drugs. due to da fact that if they dont feel like they get high enuff ne more of plan bud, they might try smoken weed laced wit like coke then the coke cud get u addicted to dat high and eventully ull be doin coke.. but this is only if the person chooses on their own terms that they think weed isnt good enuff for them nemore usally

Well, I am very intrigued where this thread has been and seems to be going - or at least my perception of that process thus far and looking forward. I would like to offer this as a more celear presentation of what I am thinking (and I leave this totally open to further debate):

In my view, this is a discussion/debate about (a) what is a drug, and (2) what is a gateway? and whose definition do we want to accept and adpot for the purposes of this discussion? There are many but in general, and paraphrasing, a drug is a substance that effects some change in physical/chemical/physiological functioning of a biological system. For these purposes, I will chose to adopt gateway as an avenue to a subsequent activity. In this case we are examining whether THC (marijuana) is a gateway to other drugs.

I think some very important points have been made by many. The elevation of nicotine C10H14N2 (as in cigarettes) as a drug is I believe appropriate. Nicotine is a naturally ocurring insecticide in the tobacco plant - i.e., it has an effect on the normal biological functioning of insects. Actually, so much that nicotine based insecticides have been banned for reasons of food safety.

I also think that alcohol is a drug. It has the ability to alter the function of a variety of biological systems, so the definition does seem to fit, from my perspective.

So in my case, I certainly had cigarettes and alcohol prior to my first puff of marijuana. Do I believe that my alcohol and cigarette experimentation led to my use of marijuana? I do not believe so. My experimentation with marijuana was pure curiousity - I had heard about the "evil drugs" when I was in Grade 8 (hash actually at the time) - and that their use would lead to a spiraling path of self destruction.

Did my use of marijuana lead to my use of other substances.....drugs. I suppose an argument can be made that it totally did from a pure sense of one followed the other, however the connotation of gateway, is that there was some "force" or some "influence" that marijuana had which "lead" you to other drugs. But I don't know what would happen if I would have been offered coke or heroin first? maybe in my mind I would have been less accepting of something harder if I had not already tried something softer, so to speak. like, marijuana, well that was ok...and didn't kill me, what's the other stuff like? and in the case of cigarettes and alcohol, the fact that I had that first, maybe that "allowed" me pyschologicaly to accept the "risk" of trying marijuana.

the other really important points that many people have brought forward include social circumstances (self esteen, family, etc), economic circumstances (availability and disposable cash), addictive personalities, and the likelihood that you will be drawn into the pleasure seeking behaviour.

I can certainly say that I KNOW I am a highliy addictive personality. I KNOW I could have MAJOR problems if I didn't exercise a high degree of self discipline. I KNOW my career and other ancillary aspects to my life are way TOO important to risk throwing it all away for blowing my brains wide open - because I need some "instant gratification". BUT....this is a totally constant struggle that I will ALWAYS have to deal with - every day, every week, every month, I have to be vigilent of the choices I make. Do I know why this is? Fuck I have been in counselling and other processes too often to describe or mention. My mom, my dad, got dropped on my head, my genetic makeup, my grandfather, the bully in Grade 7, fuck who cares - its reality - and if the desire for a drug free or moderated drug life is greater than to a highly impacted drug life - fucking deal with it - somehow. And as my dad always said - it totally ok to make mistakes - just don't make the same one too often - cuz we're human and we're supposed to be able to "learn" - and hopefully the one you do make, won't get you killed or put you in jail.

I guess what I'm trying to say, is that by experimenting with whatever, cigarettes, alcohol, and other lineages of drugs, you open your mind up to the opportunity, and to some degree the acceptance of other behaviours. Only you can judge yourself effectively - only you are responsible to yourself - only you need to be accountable to yourself - only you have to live with yourself. What other people think or say or do is their agenda - and although they may very well provide insight and experience that could prove useful to your individual circumstances - it all comes back to you. So if you want to smoke pot, and you choose to make the choice of elevating your drug use to something else - it is a choice that you make - and as with everything else in life - the choices you make all have consequences - some good, some not so good - some under your control - some not so much under your control - whatever the reality - life will soldier on, with or without you playing an active and participating role.

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