I'm 23 and I've seen marijuana literally millions of times. Probably not millions but you know what I mean. I've smoked a decent amount of blunts, bongs and make-shift Coca-Cola can bowls in my day. I don't smoke anymore, but it's not because I'm against it. It's more for the reason I can't function like a normal human being if I'm high. I know a lot of people who can though, and kudos to you, do your thing. But I can tell you I've never been high and said to my friends, "You know what we should do now? No. Not go to McDonalds, we should go shoot up some heroin!"
Up until recently I didn't even know what heroin was. I had heard of it but I didn't know what it looked like or what you did with it. I've never even seen any drug but marijuana in real life. I've probably lived a bit of a sheltered life but its because those kind of hard drugs never crossed my mind as next on the "to-do list." I wouldn't even know where to find someone who sells heroine or cocaine. Craigslist? And If I did get my hands on it I wouldn't even know what to do with it. Neither would any of my somewhat sheltered friends. Do you watch YouTube videos or something?
It's a safe bet to say anyone who's done a hard drug, probably tried marijuana first. But correlation doesn't equal causation.
I think it all depends on the person. It's definitely not true that every person that smokes pot is going to go in search of something else. One one hand i know people who smoke marijuana on a regular basis, but that hasn't made them use heroine or cocaine. On the other hand i know a few people that i grew up with who started with marijuana and moved up from there. A few have overdosed, one has gone to rehab, and one has died because of heroin usage. And it definitely started with marijuana, not because they smoked it per say, but because of who they were, who they were with, and the friends who were able to get the drugs for them. I think it's mainly a matter of what's going on in their life and because of that the decision to stick to marijuana or make the horrible mistake of trying something else is different for every person.
ReplyDeleteYou make some great points and I agree that referring to marijuana as a gateway drug is silly and ignorant. Heroine is not unattainable though, and you shouldn't marginalize it as some unrealistic possibility. Unfortunately a lot of people our age do get into very hard very dangerous drugs.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you wrote this in sort of a comical, sarcastic way. It was a really good read and you're 100% right. I personally smoke weed and have been since like 10th grade. I'm now 21 and a senior in college and have never done any other drug and never really even wanted to. I feel like marijuana is the most used and often the first used drug because we see it literally everywhere so people become comfortable around it and don't see it as a threat. Things like cocaine and heroine, like you said, are a lot less popular and accessible.
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