XPost: talk.politics.drugs
From: nathan_engle@yahoo.com

SzaszFan wrote:
> Brother Nate wrote:
> > Not exactly what I would call a "smoking gun" for claims
> > about brain damage, but a colorful piece of American
> > history nevertheless.

>   :) Admittedly amusing historical anecdotes aside, whats your position on
> the the so-called gateway theory as a justification for marijuana
> prohibition, Nathan?

I regard the Civil War as the most obvious example of
collective brain damage ever suffered by the US, yet
hemp's involvement in it was purely tangential.

Personally I don't regard the "gateway" theory as a
plausible one.  During my days of smoking like a chimney
I briefly considered the idea of trying heroin myself,
but I was talked out of it by a true friend - a friend
who was a pot smoker himself.  There really is something
to be said for the argument that people simply be allowed
a modest foolishness as an alternative to a far more
serious one.

A truly honest assessment of pot smoking is that it is
a modest foolishness that doesn't warrant the scale of
the response to it.

--
Brother Nate               Electron Juggler
nathan_engle@yahoo.com     http://php.indiana.edu/~nengle
"Truth crushed to earth will rise again."

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
 * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)