Well I have experienced Weed in high quantities over long periods of time and can assure you that it did not make me lazy or open to suggestion. Hungry yes Creative yes, grounded absolutely. Happy You betcha
So when high on weed you were more productive at work than if you weren't high?
Tell me, have you ever video taped yourself getting high?
If the government wanted control, weed would be perfect. In high quantities, it makes you lazy, hungry, and open to suggestion.
Or they'd use soma.
As much as I hate to agree with iWitness on this one the fact that marijuana is illegal is just mind blowingly stupid. Its been made illegal twice, and for the exact opposite reason each time. Then Reagan suffocated a bunch of monkeys using marijuana smoke and claimed it kills brain cells. Then you have the fact that industrial hemp is also illegal to grow even though you cannot get high from it and you start to see that they made it illegal because they wanted to have a legitimate reason (or legal) to arrest anti-vietnam war protesters. Today we spend huge amounts of money to fight an unsuccessful war against it, when in terms of addictiveness and danger its one of the safest drugs on the planet (safer than most pain killers).
In terms of it being a gateway drug, there is zero evidence that anything in pot makes you more likely to want to try crack cocaine, meth, or anything else. The only reason it is a gateway drug is because its illegal and your dealer always asks you if you want to try something else. And if you claim that it makes you want to feel what other "highs" feel like thats bullshit too, because alcohol is a drug, and its legal as well.
Anyways this really just tells you that the government is stupid/inefficient. it does not say anything about nuclear bombs existing.
Oh and i don't smoke pot, i just want a rational government.
Oh I'm not saying it should be illegal. In high quantities, alcohol is far worse. I used to be totally against it but after a great deal of research and the whole Portugal experiment, I've retracted my opinion and think it should be legal in the same way alcohol is.
As for it being a gateway drug, I disagree on that.
The reason I disagree is mostly based on experience but here's my rational for it:
You smoke weed to get high. If you don't wanna get high, you wouldn't do it. Period.
Now, your body is very good at adapting to things. Every single drug you take, if taken often enough (caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, Prozak, etc...) will have it's effect diminish simply because your body has adapted to it.
The two ways to solve this problem and keep the levels the same is either
a) Use more of the drug (ingest, smoke, put into your veins, etc...) over the same period of time.
b) Find something stronger.
With Caffeine, there really aren't any drugs that do the same job that are easy to obtain and produce a bigger impact so instead you just drink more coffee or switch to espressos.
With alcohol you may work from beer to mixed drinks to straight shots of Whiskey.
With nicotine you just smoke more cigarettes.
With Prozak, you either take more of it or you get a stronger drug.
With Weed you either smoke more of it or you find something stronger.
So, when the choices for weed are:
Smoke more
Or
Find something stronger
It's a gateway drug. Doesn't mean you will go into harder drugs, just means that it's possible.
And if weed was legal, people who need help could get it without feeling like they'll be arrested.