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  Cannabis Use Does Not Lead To Heroin
Posted by FoM on July 01, 2001 at 08:01:15 PT
By Rosie Waterhouse  
Source: Sunday Times 

cannabis Britain's first drugs czar, Keith Hellawell, has softened his hard line on cannabis, saying that he no longer believes it necessarily leads on to harder drugs. In a significant U-turn the anti-drugs co-ordinator, who was sidelined by David Blunkett, the home secretary, last month, said: "I do not believe it's a gateway drug."

The shift signals an end to Britain's apparent "zero tolerance" of soft drugs, coming only days after Blunkett endorsed a police experiment to let off people caught in possession of cannabis with only a warning.

Until now, Hellawell and ministers have not only opposed decriminalisation but also rejected calls to downgrade possession of cannabis to a lesser offence. Last November Hellawell said that research from New Zealand had convinced him that cannabis was a gateway to more harmful drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

However, last week he said: "The evidence we've got from New Zealand is that if someone smokes a joint of cannabis a week they are 60 times more likely to be involved in harder drugs than those who do not use it at that level. That is one piece of evidence.

"That does not mean that everybody who smokes 50 joints a year will automatically be involved in hard drugs."

Hellawell also supported the scheme in Lambeth, south London, where police will no longer arrest and caution people caught with cannabis.

Complete Title: Drug Czar Recants: Cannabis Use Does Not Lead To Heroin

Source: Sunday Times (UK)
Author: Rosie Waterhouse
Published: July 1 2001
Copyright: 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd.
Contact: editor@sunday-times.co.uk
Website: http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/

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Comment #3 posted by Sudaca on July 02, 2001 at 09:41:39 PT
the goal of prevention
is what fuels a lot of these nonsense positions. I think the more moralistic of our "guardians" hear the "post hoc ergo propter hoc" part of the argument; but they don't care. You see, in the black and white world of morality either one fights against evil or one is evil. Letting some people smoke pot without getting to heroin is not an option, since some people could go to heroin. To prevent the hypothetical possiblity of a child going to heroin they justify the gateway logic. If we know 1% of the experimenters will end up in hell ; aren't we justified in punishing 100% of experimenters so no one goes to hell?

Well, I say they aren't. But they don't share my opinion.
Since pot is illegal they feel the moral right to persecute the 100% of that universe of experimenters. After all we are outlaws and deserve no consideration.

Its right therefore to destroy the lives of people , who are successful in spite of their use of drugs, in order to prevent the possibility of having one of the "children" fail. Its also right to destroy the lives of sick people, of colored people, of family and friends. Just so that one lost sheep is found. This is a "christian" attitude.

by the time they're done with the good work, freedom will be a memory of historical times.



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Comment #2 posted by Firedog on July 01, 2001 at 12:10:43 PT
Theory, shmeory
The logical fallacies that some people are capable of is mind-boggling. The fact that these people shape and make public policy is even more mind-boggling.

Here's an interesting statistic: in New York City, the rate of ice cream consumption is directly correlated with the murder rate. Yet no one would draw the conclusion that eating ice cream is a "gateway" to murder. I can see it now, hysterical soccer moms leading a crusade against ice cream...

There is an underlying factor that causes both ice cream consumption and the murder rate to go up. When it gets hot, people eat more ice cream. When it gets hot, people get more irritable and short-tempered and this increases the chance of violent outbursts.

So why does it people accept the "gateway" theories without looking for underlying factors?

Sensation-seeking personalities are likely to try drugs. Risk-taking personalities are likely to try drugs. Open-minded, curious people are likely to try drugs. A person who tries drugs is somewhat more likely to continue using them than a person who never tries them in the first place.

The same personality characteristics that cause someone to be curious about marijuana are also going to cause someone to be curious about heroin or cocaine. That doesn’t mean that they’ll try heroin or cocaine, but they will be curious.

The open-minded, risk-taking personalities are also going to have curiosity about the sciences, the arts, the world, the universe, etc. They are the ones who change the world. They are the ones who push humanity to new levels. They also disrupt the status quo, and this threatens those who are parasitic on the status quo.

My guess is that the powers that be are well aware of this link, and that they keep ratcheting up the pressure in the War on Drug Users for this reason. It provides a convenient excuse to marginalize and discredit those who would challenge their authority and disrupt their established systems and structures.

In fact, kids who display these personality traits at school are quite likely to be tagged as having "attention deficit disorder". Their parents are then coerced into giving Ritalin (a legal drug) to their kids in order to keep them in school. Interesting, isn’t it?

- Firedog


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Comment #1 posted by Doug on July 01, 2001 at 09:52:40 PT
Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
I'm glad I took a logic course in high school, where I learned about logical fallacies, which all had Latin names. One of my favorites was post hoc ergo propter hoc, which drug warriors use constantly. It literally means "after this, therefore because of it". People seem to think if one activity follows another, for example using cocaine after using cannabis, then the earlier event caused the later event. No, No, NO. It proves no such thing, and the people that use it only show that they don't know how to think. While Hellawell now says he doesn't think use of cannabis causes use of harder drugs, the way he quotes the figures suggests he doesn't really understand why this is, and the use of these figures gives further ammunition to those who support the gateway theory.



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