[aerostable_slug]

I am all in favor of broad cannabis legalization, but there there is something to the gateway theory.

Most users of harder drugs indicate past use of marijuana. Additionally, marijuana gives many their first taste of doing business with drug dealers and 'breaks their cherry.' When they decide they want to try something else they have already gained experience locating dealers and engaging with them. Legalizing cannabis helps here because its users won't engage with dealers to score, they'll go to the store and buy a regulated product.

[jfindper]

>Most users of harder drugs indicate past use of marijuana.

Most people who are in hospice indicate they drank water in the past. Is water consumption a gateway to dying?

[ryandvm]

Not sure why you're down-voted.

It's definitely a gateway drug, but only from the perspective that you've forced people to establish black market financial connections. Once you've figured out how to get something illegal it opens a whole new world.

[kylecazar]

I agree completely that marijuana having been illegal itself affected the statistics.

But, the gateway drug idea was itself used as an argument against legalization.

[trimethylpurine]

Counter example, many people only want to get high on any other drug when they consume alcohol, which isn't sold by drug dealers.

We need to be careful with logic problems like, "Most users of harder drugs indicate past use of marijuana."

All users of all drugs report drinking water in the last 12 weeks.

These kinds of statements don't mean anything, but they sound important to the average reader.

Correlation != Causation