Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
Complete conjecture, the real link is that they have to break the law to smoke marijuana, so now that the line has been crossed, it is easier to keep crossing it and experment with other drugs. Legalize it, and we may be able to keep a substantial portion of our population from crossing that line.
I don't think that what I typed is conjecture (for example, I think it agrees with the research mentioned above) and I don't even think that what you wrote is any different from what I went on to state in the same paragraph: "But progressing from pot to coke is more of a baby step. Both are illegal, addictive, mild-altering substances."

I think that you outlined "A" way to tackle this. Making pot legal would make the progression from pot to coke less of a baby step. This would probably have short term benefits. Laws against passing the bong and consuming the brownies are widely viewed as unnecessary by a large portion of the population. For many, there is no stigma attached to breaking the law in order to toke a "soft" drug, just as there is no stigma attached to violating the speed limit. Changing the law to conform with their deviant behavior will likely result in a short period of exuberance as they enjoy their newfound freedom to turn their brains to mush and it may distract their focus upon other drugs. In the long term, the novelty of such a freedom will wear off. Until then, would there be a window of opportunity to exploit the reduction in demand for harder drugs and destroy the production and distribution networks? Or would there just be a 5 year recession in Columbia? Or something else? I would hope that such a change in the law were only done with a significantly larger and more ambitious accompanying effort to crush remaining elements of the drug trade in order to exploit the short term benefit.