Barça, if it seems that i was jumping at your throat, it was because you jumped at mine first. I just replied in kind.
You had no right to discard other peoples views so quickly, you know? You don´t hold the monopoly on the truth.
Regarding the so-called "studies", i think it should be pretty obvious to any one by now that the so-called scientists and doctors never seem to agree on anything, wich makes us question their sources, methods and intentions. All we can truly rely on are our own personnal experiences.
Wich by the way, you lack a great deal. I can condense your entire drug experience into one single week of my life, and that should be enough for you to hold back a notch. It´s no crime not having experience in this. Infact, i wish i didn´t have my own. When someone becomes "experienced" in the crafts of drug abuse, it means you´ve sunk down to the bottom of the pit. And you can´t even begin to wonder how deep that really is...
Before you claim our respective countries share diferent realities, i should remind you that i lived in Spain for 2 of my drug addict live, and my ex-girlfriend (an addict just like me) was from Cádiz. I´ve criss-crossed Spain from top to bottom, met hundreds of guys and girls, in dozens of cities, including Sevilla, Cádiz, Madrid, Valencia and even Barçelona. And all through my wanderings i found out that our realities are extremelly similar all the way down.
The only diference i found was in Cadiz, because it was the main entry point for moroccan hashish. I never bought the stuff so dirt cheap in my life.
I prope you totally discard the studies presented here, including those linked by myself, because they are not worth much.
I propose you find some hard core junkies in your neighbourhood, and ask them by wich drug did they start. The results will astound you.
These "studies" are fallible because we are adressing an issue that most people aren´t confortable admitting to. How many drug users do you know, that openly admit to using it? Do your parents know about your smoking? Or your non-using friends (if you still have some)? Well, maybe they do. But the majority doesn´t. Do you think drug users will answer the questions, posed to them by some quack doctor, with complete honesty? Obviously not. Some will claim to things they haven´t done yet, while others will deny some of what they HAVE infact done. This is why studies are fallible at best.
Let´s use common sense a bit:
For example, how much a percentage of young people will immediatelly start consuming hard drugs, without experiencing softer drugs?
How easier would it be for a group of people, already suffering from the social problems inherent to the use of drugs, to depart from soft drugs into a heavier drug experience?
I would say pretty easy. It´s almost unhard of to have someone jumping head on into hard drugs, without experiencing at least a year or so with soft drugs. Using alcohol and cannabis will condition a man´s behaviour and social condition, making him a more suitable target for hard drugs.
You can read all about this here:
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction
But then again, what´s the use? No matter how many more studies claiming to one thing we can produce, there is always an equal number of other studies claiming otherwise! I could produce 100 reports saying one thing, that you would find another 100 saying another...
But if you´re interested, there is the Spain 2003 Drug report on that link, wich i read entirely.

Oh, btw, it would be healthy to get one thing straight:
When i said cannabis was not all that harmfull, i was meaning mostly on the social aspect, not the medical, and always in comparison with hard drugs and alcohol. I´ve said this before, but it seems i can´t stress it enough...
But since we´re at it, please observe the complete list of hazzards reported on the Spanish report. You´ll find it enlightning.
And what were those questions again? What question was that, that i failed to answer so much?
Also, isn´t it odd that while i think cannabis isn´t very damaging by itself (medical wise), and yet think it should not be legalized, while you think it´s quite harmfull and yet you continue to poster the "benefits" of it, and continue to advocate its usage?
If it´s so bad for you, as you say, why do you keep on smoking it????
Isn´t this a wee bit of a paradox?
:confused:

__________________
"Quincitilius Varus, give me back my legions!"
Emperor Augustus of Rome.

A few good charts with some numbers:
Table of substances used by Spanish users.

Also check here for other charts and numbers:
Check here

__________________
"Quincitilius Varus, give me back my legions!"
Emperor Augustus of Rome.

Regarding the DEA report, i have 2 things to say:
First, (like i said before, and i repeat) the North and South America realities are way diferent from the European. The DEA report only aply to the Americas, thus i cannot and will not comment on its accuracy.
Second, i believe i´ve stated my skepticism about these studies and reports, by various reasons.In the words of one of my therapists:"I know nothing about this, i need you to explain it to me". An honest therapist will acknowledge he knows nothing at all about drug addiction, unless they´ve been there. The best therapists i´ve knowned were ex-addicts, recruited to work on the centers.


Very true, but not the way you intended.
Drugs affect each individual a diferent way. There aren´t never 2 cases exactlly the same. Drugs have distict effects on people. Some will feel euphoric, while others fall into depression. It´s impossible to judge a whole community based on the findings of a single subject.
Likewise, going into withdrawl (cold turkey) will affect persons in different ways. Some will go through it easy, while others can almost die from it.
Understanding drug addiction is not a science. It´s more of an art. The more you see, the more you know.


I answer this with another quote:
"Have you even bothered to check on the medical results posted? Your version of downsides for marijuana is speculative and at best it can be explained as your personal experience. You have disregarded everything that has been mentioned by either Aether or me on the subject, but most importantly by various medical researchers.
You also claimed: "the majority will use it to climb the drug ladder to heavier stuff, like cocaine, speed, or even crack cocaine and heroine"
That statement has no validity whatsoever. It is not backed up by any study, and my personal experience tells me otherwise, but hey, if your PERSONAL experience is that most users of pot use it to climb to higher drugs... dont be so rotund when 'setting things straight'"

Your "experience" tells you otherwise???? I´m being "speculative"???
It´s not backed by any "study"? Despite what i think about "studies", i posted quite a few of them, that do corroborate my views.
And judging from your own words, you have no experience at all, so what makes you so think you know what it is like? You´re the one speculating here, based on a few puffs of weed, and one line of coke!! Do you know how much that makes me laugh?


First of all, i am not AETHER, nor can i speak for him, just as he can´t speak for myself. Your questions are with him, and not with me. I just pointed out that the effects of smoking weed aren´t all that clear cut as you might think.
And that in some controled experiments, some subjects actually benefited some extra concentration from smoking it. But that´s all. They were what you call a fluke!
Mankind still doesn´t possess enough insight on the human brain to know how to answer why this happened, and how to duplicate the effect.
But when comparing with alcohol, it´s quite safe to say that weed if far more safe to drive while under its influence. It still doesn´t make it 100% full proof, but the diference is still there.


You "did all except weed"???? You mean to say you did all except heroine, right? Ahh, it´s not important.
I am glad you´ve managed to stay away from heroine. It´s a killer drug. It destroys everything, family, work, friends... There is nothing left after a couple of years. And i stayed hooked on it for over 15! So you can just imagine what it did to me and my family...
There is a simple test you can take to see if you´re hooked aswell. Cannabis doesn´t produce physical dependence, but it does cause psicological dependence.Try this:
If you can go out on a saturday night, with your regular group of friends, and remain all night without smoking allthough they have some and smoke it themselfs, then you´re in the clear, at least for now. But if you take even one puff, then you need to start analysing your life.

Let me put it another way:
From all the people i´ve knowned, either here or abroad, it was the case.
Maybe i got a batch of people that don´t exemplify the larger majority, but that would be highly improbable, wouldn´t it? In the centers i´ve stayed, in France, in Italy, in Spain, the people i´ve knowned here in Portugal during my 20 years of addiction, and the people i knew in Spain during my time living there, i can safely say it was so. It´s over 2 thousand names. Two thousand persons that don´t fit your "picture".Are you trying to tell me that all these guys, coming from all the 4 corners of Europe, don´t exemplify the larger community? Isn´t that a bit farfetched?
Here we have, a group of people originated from hundreds of diferent places, all joined together in one place, and they don´t count as a valid statistic?
Or maybe you think that the centers only accepted addicts that didn´t smoke weed before moving up to heroine? Hummm, that´s a new one. Discriminating centers...
"You smoked weed? Sorry, you can´t get in. We only accept non-weed smokers."
:indeed:


You did read it all, didn´t you?
If you did, how come you missed that those "statistics" were provided by the government of the US, and were exactly what the authors of the study were disputing? I believe the wording was "the flip side of the coin".
What does this tells you? It tells us that no matter what you say, there will be always some study somewhere that states the opposite. But we can´t have two seperate truths, can we? Wich one is right?
Trust me Barça, when i say "don´t trust any studies"! They aren´t worth it.
Trust your eyes, your friends, your streets, your barrios. That´s where the truth is. Visit La Rambla, Las 3000 viviendas, Puerto de Sta Maria, or your local gipsy camp, places like that. Ask the people. Don´t ask the doctors in their Mercedes.
Now, what was that question again?
:dog:

__________________
"Quincitilius Varus, give me back my legions!"
Emperor Augustus of Rome.

Swamp_Thing:

1- A Majority would mean that out of 100 people who try weed, 51 will go on to harder drugs. Not even the authorities admit that much.
2- I admit the health risks, and as I've said before, I still smoke because I like to. A couple of joints every week is, IMHO, not an addiction. Grisu begs to differ. Its the same with alcohol or cigarettes, they're bad, and yet theyre still sold, and I doubr anyone can get away saying that in fact drinking alcohol and smoking is good for your health.
3- I respect your knowledge, but again you presume wrong things about me. I have been to countless shanty towns to score hash, as it was hard to come by where I live. I have visited La Rosilla, las Ramblas.... and I have seen drug centers with my own eyes. Again, all the thousands of people you met which ended up taking heroin, they did indeed start with weed.... but I never denied that. All I say is, go out to MAdrid, on a Saturday night, and see the tens of thousands of people smoking hash. According to you, a majority will go on to other drugs, what I say is that that sentence has no validity, and it doesnt. If I go to a drug rehabilitation program, of course most people will have tried weed, as it is a soft drug and easy to come by, and most addicts will have tried more then one type of drug. Of my age group, I would say most, if not all the people I know have tried hash. None are users of heroin.
Basically, all I disputed from your argument was that you claimed most people WILL try harder stuff. My reply to that is that you are wrong. For you to be correct would mean that out of 3 weed users, 2 will go on to harder stuff. In a very poor barriada, I can accept that. In the larger sense (as I believe, Spains population of 40 million is not exclusive to barriadas) that statement doesnt hold tight.

I never said, nor have i intended to imply that the majority of weed smokers will move up to other drugs. I only mean that the majority of hard drug users have climbed from weed. It´s a diferent thing.
Of course the majority of weed smokers won´t go passed it, just look at the numbers i presented. The weed versus heroin users ration is 50 to 1 or more.
What i mean to say is that if weed is legalized, the current numbers of weed smokers will boost, and the number of hard drugs users will grow exponencially.
But even you would agree that although the average weed smoker won´t become addicted to hard drugs, it is quite common to see them dabbling with other drugs. It´s what is called a poly user. You yourself have admited to having done so, didn´t you?
The intended purpose of my entire point is to show you that most cannabis users have tried other harder drugs. In that respect, and although the majority hasn´t developed an addiction to those same hard drugs, the truth is the majority of weed users have tried those drugs in some point in the past.
Out of that number, a few will become addicted and move up.

This is what i mean. I think we have a misunderstanding here. I´m not saying the majority of weed users will become addicts of hard drugs, only yhat they will try them in some point in time. Some will try it once, others twice, and some others all the time. Just as some will never get near the stuff.
Also, i think we need to clear what is considered to be a "hard drug".
Hard drug isn´t just heroine. The concept of hard drug is based on the social damage threshold caused by it, and the degree of addiction that it causes.
The most knowned are heroine and cocaine, but there is also barbiturics (demerol), the benzodiazepin derivatives (valium, mandrax, rohypnol, lexotan), LSD, crystal meth, cracked cocain (crack), mescaline, MDMA (exctasy), angel dust (PCP), morphine, opium, speed,etc etc.
These are what is considered "hard drugs".
"Soft drugs" are mostly alcohol, cannabis, mushrooms, devil´s herb,and even common tobacco.
I realise you would place some of those "hard" drugs in the "soft" drug list, like exctasy or LSD, but there are some (me included) that think the effects of such drugs are too dire to be considered as a soft drug.
Legally, they might be considered at the same level as cannabis, but medically they are as destructive as any other on the "hard" list. I even believe alcohol should be moved up to the other category, but...

I don´t presume to know how much and at what regularity you smoke your joints, Barça. But i would like to see you take the test i proposed to you.
If you smoke 3 or 4 joints a week, even though you might not realise it, your life is being totally conditioned by it. I would bet that your night out starts by the perpetual ritual of scoring the shit. You leave home, get together with friends, go over to some place to buy the stuff and then move on to enjoy the night itself. Am i right? Well, the casual smoker doesn´t do this. He leaves home directly to the bars and discos, and makes no effort whatsoever to score some hash. He only smokes if the situation presents itself, while a regular user will actively pursue the oportunity to smoke it. In wich group do you fit in?
Either way, it´s not important. You are a grown man and you control your life. I´ve always been a true believer of self choice, and each one of us is entitled to his own.
However, i will remind everyone here of one thing:
There isn´t one single addict on Earth that hasn´t believed to have drugs in control, and believed they control the drug, and not that the drug controls him. I have never met a junkie that hadn´t spent half his life deceiving himself, claiming "i don´t have a problem", when infact he did. It´s a natural development in a junkie´s life.
You spend half you life denying having a problem, and the other half fixing the damage done.
All junkies believe they have it under control, and that they are not addicted and only smoke it when they want. Believe me, it´s complete BS.
Once you are in, you can´t get out unless helped. And that is where most fail: they don´t want to admit to be in need of help, thinking they can handle it by themselfs. But they can´t.

With all this, i don´t mean to say you have a problem yourself. I don´t know you enough to make such a claim. But i would advize you to take care, before you loose control. The line between recreational use and addiction is very thin.
:indeed:

PS: Have you read the report?

__________________
"Quincitilius Varus, give me back my legions!"
Emperor Augustus of Rome.

Glad we at least cleared that out. I was under the wrong impression.
As for your test... I have been more than OK without smoking joints for long periods of time, and I am fine if friends smoke and I dont.