Marijuana is not a gateway drug.

Having to deal with a drug dealer that wants to also sell you actually addictive drugs is the gateway.

Legalize pot, sell it at the grocery store, and you will watch the number of addicts in general fall precipitously. I guarantee it.

Having to deal with a drug dealer that wants to also sell you actually addictive drugs

Clearly marijuana has some serious kind of habituation, and it’s equally clear that many people that use marijuana are problem users. Addictive? No, not by any strict definition of addiction, since you won’t suffer serious adverse effects if you stop. OTOH, I’ve known at least as many problem marijuana users as problem drinkers

The question isn’t whether Marijuana is habit forming. Obviously for some percentage it is. The question is whether Marijuana use in and of itself encourages or preface additional drug use. My position is that it does not and by legalizing Marijuana we would find that it is the interaction with black market drug dealers which correlates instead.

The question is whether Marijuana use in and of itself encourages or preface additional drug use.

I would argue that in many ways it does. Marijuana is–or was–illegal. Alcohol is legal, but age restricted. If you are willing to use a substance that is (was) entirely illegal, you are more likely going to be willing to try other drugs that are legitimately addictive, because you’ve already crossed one of the major hurdles. If alcohol had been illegal for the same amount of time that marijuana had been, then I would agree that alcohol was likely a gateway drug as well.

I’m in favor of de-scheduling marijuana entirely. But I think that it’s disingenuous for people to act as though there weren’t serious problems with chronic and underage marijuana use.