cannabisnews.com: Eradicating MJ Protects Kids Against Gateway 





Eradicating MJ Protects Kids Against Gateway 
Posted by FoM on October 04, 2000 at 08:31:32 PT
Letters To The Editor
Source: Baltimore Sun
It was ironic that Dan Rodricks' criticism of the Maryland State Police's marijuana eradication efforts ("Officials could use a refresher course or 2," Sept. 15) appeared in the same edition of The Sun that reported drug overdose deaths now exceed homicides ("Overdose deaths exceed slayings," Sept. 15). What do marijuana growers have to do with heroin overdose? 
It is well-documented that a young person headed for a life of drug abuse usually doesn't start with crack or heroin. He or she is very likely to experiment first with marijuana. By the time the youngster reaches high school, he or she is ready to try a drug such as heroin -- which has taken far too many young lives. Law enforcement is regularly criticized for arresting only drug users and not targeting dealers and suppliers. But our marijuana eradication program targets the growers, those manufacturing a drug that ends up in Maryland's schoolyards and neighborhoods. So far this year, we have arrested 65 marijuana growers. We have recovered and eradicated 5,500 marijuana plants. If those plants were harvested and processed for sale, they would have rewarded growers with $10 million in profits. Working with the Maryland National Guard, we are able to keep the costs of the eradication program to a minimum. And we support drug task forces and local police departments across Maryland. There is no doubt drug treatment is vital and we need more of it. But for us to stand by and let this gateway drug be manufactured in our own fields and forests would be a reckless neglect of duty. It would mean we were standing beside an open gate, willingly watching our young people begin their journey down a path that can lead from marijuana, to pills, to cocaine, to heroin and, too often, to death. I intend to help shut that gate before their tragic journey begins. Complete Title: Eradicating Marijuana Protects Kids Against Gateway to Narcotics Col. David B. Mitchell Pikesville The writer is superintendent of the Maryland State Police. Source: Baltimore Sun (MD)Published: October 4, 2000Author: Col. David B. MitchellCopyright: 2000 The Baltimore Sun, a Times Mirror Newspaper.Contact: letters baltsun.comAddress: 501 N. Calvert Street P.0. Box 1377 Baltimore, MD 21278Fax: (410) 315-8912Website: http://www.sunspot.net/Forum: http://www.sunspot.net/cgi-bin/ultbb/Ultimate.cgi?action=introRelated Articles:Smoke Screenhttp://www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/features/99/06/10/DRUGS.htmlUp in Smokehttp://www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/features/99/03/25/MEDICAL_MARIJUANA.html
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Comment #11 posted by Jeanette on April 19, 2001 at 17:41:33 PT:
Marijuana a gateway drug?????
    Many people have told me never to try drugs. and with all the health clases i have i know most everything about drugs. they are always saying it just takes once to get hooked and they also say many people start with marijuana then go to more dangeriuos and addictive drugs like cocaine or crack then on to other drugs and i believe the only reason for that is because dealers occationally add cocaine to the marijuana. but if you get just plain marijuana it is not a gatway drug. but you may never know if it isnt laced so you gotto just the dealer or grow your own. but thats illegal but hey so is smoking it.    I think this because i know from experience. i know that i have never gotten marijuana that was laced with cocaine. i have and will never want to get into any other drug. i do not think marijuana is addictive at all nor a gateway drug. thats just a bunch of crap so teens dont try it. well to clue all you people in the more you say dont do it the more some teens want to do it. i say more power to them. its nothing like a feeling like that. but if they get stuff that is laced i would say there is a greater chance of wanting to do other drugs such as cocaine and crack.     I have seen people get addicted to alcohol and tobacco but never to regular marijuana so to make it illegal is kinda messed up. you should make the addictive stuff illegal not the stuff that is a hell of a lot safer than legal stuff but no one ever listens to the kids so oh well
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Comment #10 posted by observer on October 04, 2000 at 16:48:36 PT
gateway (stepping-stone) myth ... more
THE 1950's: HARSHER PENALTIES AND A NEW RATIONALE-THE "STEPPING STONE" THEORY http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/vlr/vlr5.htmUnderlying the inclusion of marihuana in the scheme of increased penalties was the progression theory. In the Boggs hearings many witnesses testified to the link between marihuana use and ultimate heroin addiction. Commissioner Anslinger, for example, testified: The danger is this: Over 50 percent of these young addicts started on marihuana smoking. They started there and graduated to heroin; they took the needle when the thrill of marihuana was gone (Boggs Act Hearings, 1951: 206).Representative Boggs himself summed up the stepping-stone thesis in House floor debate:Our younger people usually start on the road which leads to drug addiction by smoking marihuana. They then graduate into narcotic drugs-cocaine, morphine, and heroin. When these younger persons become addicted to the drugs, heroin, for example, which costs from $8 to $15 per day, they very often must embark on careers of crime ... and prostitution ... in order to buy the supply which they need (Congressional Record, 1951: 8197-8198).The stepping-stone theory thus supplanted the older hypotheses which had linked marihuana to addiction, insanity and violent crime. US National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, 1972History of Marihuana Legislationhttp://www.drugtext.org/reports/nc/nc2.htm
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Comment #9 posted by RAS JAMES on October 04, 2000 at 13:20:42 PT
GATEWAY DRUGS
I AM 57 YEARS OLD AND MY GATEWAY DRUG WAS ALCOHOL. THEN I WENT TO CIGAREETES AND THEN TO MARIJUANNA WHICH WAS MY FINAL DRUG. THANK YOU, ALMIGHTY FOR THIS TREE OF LIFE THAT SAVED MY LIFE FROM THE SLAVERY OF ALCOHOL AND NCIOTENE.
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Comment #8 posted by Steven on October 04, 2000 at 12:55:35 PT:
Policy of Self Deception
Col. Mitchells comments remind us of the absence of critical thought in drug policy. Myth and fantasy seem to have the edge of reality since the days of Harry Anslinger. Even the most recent study comissioned by the DEA stated that marijuana is NOT a gateway drug, and following the science has been abandoned when it dissagrees with the myth.For example, When Gen. Macaffery went to the Amsterdam he had the opportunity to visit coffee shops in the area, but refused to go, stating that there was nothing to learn. We should expect our public officals to grow and learn, not to accept myth as fact.
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Comment #7 posted by observer on October 04, 2000 at 12:28:38 PT
``gateway'' myth
A Conversation About the Gateway Mythhttp://www.tfy.drugsense.org/conv.htmDrug War Facts: Gateway Theoryhttp://www.csdp.org/factbook/gatewayt.htmDon’t Cite Marijuana as a Gateway Drughttp://www.cannabisnews.com/news/5/thread5380.shtmlalso known as the "Stepping-Stone Hypothesis"http://www.iversonsoftware.com/reference/psychology/Stepping-stone%20theory.htmStepping-stone hypothesis(Netherlands Alcohol and Drugs Report - Trimbos - 1996 - NL)http://www.thc.nl/Documents/Trimbos%20Netherlands%20Alcohol%20and%20Drugs%20Report%201996.htm#Steppinghttp://www.thc.nl/DefaultDoc.htm
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Comment #6 posted by i_rule_ on October 04, 2000 at 09:39:07 PT
Marijuana gateway? My ass.
When I was a kid, the first thing we experimented with was tobacco. I have never been so violently ill as I was when I first started smoking cigarettes. (Which I no longer do, btw) Next, we snuck some beers out and got ****faced. This is the second most ill I have ever been. (But, I do drink an occasional Tequila sunrise, now.)Then, we discovered marijuana. I have never laughed so hard in my life and felt such a brotherhood with nature and people as I did after discovering this *evil* weed. (I will never stop smoking pot.)Through peer pressure, and not using pot as a stepping stone, we experimented with the harder drugs. This is where control gets pissed into the wind. I hated the faulse confidence these drugs gave me, because I knew they had control over me, and not vice versa. I hated the chemical taste in my throat, and the paranoia and anxiety it caused in my soul. ( I will never put another man-made chemical in my body for pleasure.)To say that marijuana is a gateway drug, is just grasping desperately for an excuse to deny that the legal poisons, alcohol and tobacco, are the real culprit. Marijuana happens to be a comparitively safe alternative, even to the legal poisons. But pot makes you a safer driver, a happier person, less violent, and possibly healthier than the other shit, legal or not, so let's irradicate it and keep it from our children. They don't deserve a safe alternative.--------------------------After eating an entire bull, the mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him. The Moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.Will Rogers 
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Comment #5 posted by observer on October 04, 2000 at 09:23:36 PT
All For The Children
... Protects Kids ... There we go. The ever-successful "For The Children" propaganda theme. Col. David B. Mitchell, superintendent of the Maryland State Police, is only doing it for "The Children." It has nothing to do with overtime, increased budgets, salary, hours billed, property seized from people. Only a "legalizer" would mention inconvenient facts like that. Note that Mitchell doesn't get to seize property cars and cash from murderers and rapists. Only people who have a joint in the house, or a cannabis plant on their land. Murderers, extortionists, corrupted bribe-taking public officials get to keep their houses and cars. Just those wicked and recalcitrant marijuana smokers. (Joyce Nalepka cheers from Silver Spring, MD: jails can never release enough murderers and rapists to make way for marijuana smokers!) You can see why police squeal when deprived of this slop-bucket, when their trough is the least bit threatened. . . .If those plants were harvested and processed for sale, they would have rewarded growers with $10 million in profits. (More mendacity. Only if each plant produced pounds of salable material, and then further only if the growers could sell it in Times Square, on New Year's Eve, in individually-packed gram baggies, that is. Otherwise, as for any other commodity, it is sold wholesale in larger amounts, at discount. I doubt if the growers could make a hundredth of the so-called "$10 million" figure Oberdrogenfuhrer Mitchell claims.)Just another example of how the vested-interest drug warriors like to hype the amounts and severity of the "crisis" of "drugs."All for The Children. 
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Comment #4 posted by Kanabys on October 04, 2000 at 09:19:43 PT
How long now?
>> I intend to help shut that gate before their tragic journey begins. How long has the LEO's been trying to "shut that gate" now? I think it's about 80+ years. My best guess: If they haven't been able to do it in that amount of time, THEY WILL NEVER DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Comment #3 posted by r.earing on October 04, 2000 at 09:11:34 PT:
///
I guess you don't need to be very well informed to rise high up in the Maryland state police.Very quaint to see these old messages being repeated.Sort of like radio signals in space.
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Comment #2 posted by Frank S. World on October 04, 2000 at 08:54:02 PT
Self-serving propaganda
From a drug war profiteer. Col. Mitchell and his troops don't want to miss out on any overtime for ripping up plants. Serving and protecting is the last thing on his mind. The Gateway theory has been debunked. Get with it Colonel, and stop spouting prohibitionist lies!
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Comment #1 posted by dankhank on October 04, 2000 at 08:53:19 PT:
A Liar and a Fool
The first illegal drugs that most children experiment with are NICOTINE and ALCOHOL and if you believe anything else you have no clue.That is the problem with letting the police have a voice in the drug debate.What else would you expect him to say?Shut up sir, and go find a violent felon to arrest.
HEMP n STUFF
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