As a former drug user, I can tell you that I started with breast milk and baby formula.
Russ | 10.19.06 - 9:06 am | #

it was nitrous oxide for me
Keith | 10.19.06 - 12:10 pm | #

They always present the data one way-- showing how hard drugs users 'started' with pot. But I would love to know the rest of the picture, specifically what percentage of pot smokers never go on to use more serious drugs.
Leonardo | 10.19.06 - 2:25 pm | #

Leo: that was the first thing that popped into my head when I saw that crap. Or, what percentage of meth addicts were never big into pot prior to getting into meth.

On a related note, I saw this horrific commercial the other day, some BS PSA, they show a grainy, sweet picture of a nice young white couple. The audio is a 911 recording of the man begging for help. The captions say that the couple was high on meth when they got stuck in a blizzard, and they couldn't tell the 911 operator where they were...and they ended up freezing to death.

The moral of the story being, don't get high on meth prior to driving around in a blizzard.
Evan! | 10.19.06 - 4:51 pm | #

I still don't understand how the same people can claim marijuana is the begining point for every drug and behavior, but then claim that cigarettes juist lead to more cigarettes. blows my mind. If you are that inconsistent, then your original argument shouldn't even be considered, nevermind disproving it with data about what percentage of people move from marijuana to harder drugs, or whatever.

However, I always like to point out that the best estimate we have is that 75 million americans have tried marijuana. As enjoyable as it might be to lock yourself in your house and watch it; thankfully we do not have millions upon millions of meth, herion...etc addicts running around.

It's a lot easier to draw a correlation between drug abuse and the social problems associated with it to our War on Drugs than to marijuana (the government is beyond paronoid in their almost singular focus on pot.) That's the most important part in all this.
Rob | Homepage | 10.20.06 - 11:56 am | #