Marijuana is a mind-altering, schedule 1 narcotic. Marijuana has the same schedule rating as heroin, which is highly addictive and deadly even in small quantities. Marijuana has been a focal point of the justice system and debates over the years on both the beneficial and adverse effects of the drug. While many people believe that marijuana can cause brain damage, is highly addictive and are convinced pot is a gateway drug that leads users to get into hard street drugs. As a former cop, I have had many encounters with people using marijuana, alcohol and other narcotics and can simply say the argument above is not the case. One of the most powerful claims with the use of marijuana is that it is damaging to the brain. However, there have been studies conducted on heavy smokers of marijuana, and no signs of brain damage are present. …show more content…
There are beliefs that if we can stop the use of marijuana, it will put an end to the abuse of all drugs. However, there is proof that most abusers of more illicit drugs have also previously used alcohol and tobacco. Therefore, alcohol and tobacco should be placed on this list too. Since many people report experimenting with marijuana if marijuana were legitimately a gateway drug, wouldn’t there be a much higher percentage of people using heroin and cocaine on a regular basis? However, people are still persuaded to buy into the gateway drug propaganda, even if there are real-life examples to the contrary. For example, look at areas where recreational use of marijuana is allowed or decriminalized, or used for medicinal use. Places such as Amsterdam, Holland, Colorado, California and other areas, have shown that other illicit drug use is significantly lower among the population. This illustration single-handedly disproves the gateway drug position and seems to point to the fact that marijuana is more likely a replacement for harder drugs than a starting