How much drug talk is legal at this forum? I have plenty of opinions on this matter, but I don't want to get banned or get the thread locked. So if a mod reads this and I've crossed the line, please delete my post.
Marijuana, like alcohol, like painkillers, like antidepressants, like adderall and other prescription stimulants, can have huge negative effects on a person's life if their use of it gets out of hand. I have known people who have reached this point. One of my best friends in college once got the point where she smoked about ten bowls a day. She had no motivation to do anything. She and her boyfriend were content to keep their minimum wage jobs and just smoke all day every day. Trying to have conversations with her was weird. She had all sorts of crazy ideas that weren't grounded in reality, and her goals and desires were completely unlike those of most normal people. Since she was never not stoned, she never got any moments of sober perspective, and it clearly affected her thought processes in a negative way.
However, in moderation, marijuana is just fine. It can enhance your creativity, and it can increase your enjoyment of certain movies and music. For example, listening to a song like Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" or The Who's "Baba O'Reilly" after smoking can be pure bliss. Thoughts and ideas occur to you that wouldn't normally occur to you in a sober state, and quite often these ideas have merit even when returned to in a sober state. The inspiration for some of my best short stories has come while under the influence.
Unlike cocaine, heroins, methamphetamines, alcohol, nicotine and many other substances, marijuana is rarely physically addicting. People who are "addicted" to marijuana are addicted from a psychological perspective, but they would have no physical withdrawal symptoms or "need" for the drug. I used to smoke cigarettes, and that is a physical addiction. You feel a very real physical craving for nicotine if you are addicted to it, and marijuana is not the same at all.
As for the gateway drug argument, I think alcohol is much more of a gateway drug than marijuana. Most of the cocaine users I know do it while they are drinking. I've never seen anyone start using cocaine after smoking herb. There are certain drugs that are a logical transition from marijuana, however. These are ecstasy, shrooms and LSD. These drugs are mainly taken in a club/rave setting. However, they are rarely abused, and people who take these drugs don't do it because they smoke pot; they do it because they were already open to using heavy mind-altering substances to begin with. People who use these "rave drugs" don't start using them because marijuana piqued their interest in heavier substances. That interest was already there to begin with.
That's basically my stance on the issue. I feel that marijuana should be decriminalized. People who smoke it aren't the ones who go roaring down the highway at 90 mph or go around looking for intoxicated women to prey on. Pot-smokers, in my experience (which is considerable) just want to hang out and listen to music or watch movies, and are generally completely harmless.
