THAT is a half a billion fuckin dollars worth of poppies??!!?? Where can I get some seeds, that would easily fit in my back yard! I call bullshit.
You'll never get rid of it completely, but if it wasn't $40 on any streetcorner it would certainly reduce the number of people on it. Couple that with a real effort to reign in the pain medication scams that get lots of people hooked in the first place and you'll be as close to stamping it out as you could be.
There are things that cannot be eradicated. Addiction, poverty, disease, jealousy, war, greed, and a crapload of other things. They're just realities of life. The same life that strives and reaches out to the stars also fails magnificently. We can do better with addiction, but it will always be there.
Like I'm the only one here with AN OPINION? As you so succinctly stated, it's my OPINION that marijuana is a gateway drug. While in itself it's not going to kill you, it does get you into the culture from where it's a smaller step into the heavy sh*t.
Can't eliminate it when doctors are handing out prescriptions for oxi and other "legals" like they were altoids. Want to cut way back on the number of people on heroin? Make it tougher to prescribe the gateways to heroin and audit the doctors with a threat of losing their licenses. Oh, and make the manufacturers pay for the treatment to get people off their shit.
so then wouldnt it also be true that caffeine, alcohol and nicotine, which are used at MUCH higher rates than cannabis, are also gateway drugs that lead to heroin? The leap required to make those items gateways is no different than the one required to label cannabis the same. Causation, correlation and all that shit.
As for pot, for most people that's a gateay drug to shitty music, doritos, stupidity, watching fantasia and living in your parents basement at 35.
You mean I'm a bad person for listening to the Spin Doctors and having a stocking order with Amazon for Funyuns?
This is what I don't get. When I had my two bad get offs(life flighted) back in the day and more recently when a cager tried to kill me on my Harley. I had to practically beg for any type of pain medicine. I have a pretty high pain tolerance and I generally hate taking anything, even an ibuprofen. It was like pulling teeth to get a measly 20 or so hydrocodone prescription just so I could at least sleep. I understand the most recent scrutiny but the other times were back in 2001/02 time frame. Well befor the current state of abuse. How are these peeps able to get prescription after prescription for this stuf.
Dude, last time (well, time before last) I had an inner ear, sinus infection they asked me if I needed a prescription for that shit (can't remember what my choices were but they were some heavy duty doodie). Claim back pain and going to a pill mill is my guess.
My last ER visit not related to falling off motorbikes mirrors Dave's experience. Got a blood infection from an ingrown toenail and drove from Weedarado back to Lutefiska. ER doc put me on Ceftin and gave me a scrip for some opiate painkiller that I didn't want, didn't need, and didn't fill, even after telling him after a 14 hr drive with a throbbing foot I think I'm managing the pain just fine. This was back in '95 or '96
In response.....Caffeine, alcohol and nicotine were around for much longer than the heroin epidemic and (with the exception of booze) don't lead to a high of any significance. I know I'm old school around this joint but I was around the marijuana boom of the sixties/seventies. I know full well what the drug culture is. I harbor no belief that you can stop drug abuse. The best we can do is curb it and keep the majority away...that means destroying the culture, driving it back underground. Legalizing marijuana allows it to come to the surface. Look, you're not supposed to go to a public park and drink booze, right? Why should there be open smoking of dope? It may not be legal to smoke dope in public but it is much harder to control than a can of Bud or a bottle of skull-pop.
Curious as to the relationship of alcohol abuse as a gateway to heroin. Not a supporter of alcohol abuse either though our culture is so ingrained with alcohol that getting rid of it is not possible. Tried that back in the 20's and it didn't work. Doesn't even really work in the middle east.
I am not suggesting prohibition, just pointing out the hypocrisy of a socially acceptable drug vs one that isn't. This is anecdotal evidence, but everyone I knew that smoked dope started with alcohol. If we are going to play cause and effect gateway, you cannot ignore alcohol.