[xprnio]

The cannabis to cocaine pipeline sadly is real, whether we want to or not. As long as the same people we buy our weed from also have a chance of being the people that have cocaine for you to buy, all that’s left to figure out is the money and the willingness to buy some.

(Sadly speaking from experience)

[Thraway198]

I have smoked cannabis for 20 years and I have never known anyone fall into the "cannabis-to-cocaine pipeline."

Everyone I knew who developed coke problems had drinking problems first. Bar none.

[laughing_man]

So many guys I knew who were occasional weed smokers in high school started smoking cigarettes in college. That's the real "pipeline" effect of weed: cigarette smoking.

[Thraway198]

Really? Im a millennial and dont know anyone who smoked who didnt start when they were like 13. Cigarettes = cancer.

[laughing_man]

It might be a generational thing. I graduated from college in the '80s.

[Thraway198]

Oh yeah. That's still the cigarettes are cool generation. I wasn't even born then.

[bushwart]

Legal cannabis sends its greetings, if you're lucky enough to live in a country where you can acquire it without having make any shady acquaintances.

[jgerrish]

Especially if medical prescriptions for it aren't necessary.

Confounding migraines for weed prescriptions and very real stroke risk and a desire for low THC marijuana isn't going to be a happy show I want to go through watching that happen to friends.

It makes a mockery of real medical issues.

Doctors and health care should be involved in drug use and advising patients, maybe even clean supplies or other things.

But we got the ACA of public health options with medical marijuana. And I want to remember Obama and others for inspiring us, not hacks.

A lot of people won't be believed in time.

[BunsanSpace]

No.

Cannabis is a multi purpose drug, cocaine is party drug and/or a "I haven't slept, don't want the 8 hour+ commitment of speed, but need to stay awake" drug.

The overlap of pot users and cocaine users is rather small in my anecdotal experience.

[ipaddr]

That's not a common path to coke. Those who sell coke don't want to deal with a less profitable product that can be purchased legally.

In the movies the drug dealer has an overcoat with every common drug ready to sell at any point. In reality people stick to one or products because there not dealing with multiple suppliers and carrying products for months until the right buyer comes along, they buy in bulk and sell quickly.

[calmworm]

This is odd to me. The X to Y pipeline is real if A, B, and C also align. It’s a weak correlation that sounds a lot like the “gateway drug” propaganda.

[goodroot]

That's interesting and probably an argument for pro-legalization.

Were I to pick a gateway drug into cocaine, it would be alcohol. It becomes a way to infuse more energy in a later night, which is usually one of alcoholic revelry.

When cannabis is just in a store and it's the only thing there, many potheads just stay in the pothead bubble.

[sscaryterry]

Exactly, alcohol IMHO affects judgment significantly worse than cannabis.

[Thraway198]

AND its a heavy party drug, which cannabis is notoriously not

[CaptWillard]

What you describe is one of the reasons I've always favored legalization of cannabis (though I wouldn't describe it as a "pipeline")

I didn't want my kids to have any reason to know the types of people we had to deal with.

[nephihaha]

I am aware of someone who does both, because I overheard someone discussing it with him. Cannabis will retain a black market when it becomes a government cash cow.

[PaulHoule]

Back in college I had a friend find a new dealer who he thought was pretty cool until he tossed out a rock in the middle of a pot deal, my friend never went back.

Myself I have been involved with weed a long time and never seen cocaine though my son did go into town one night and lock himself out of his car and have an experience we call "the night of the living baseheads."

The best drug dealer at my old school was a guy who would take chances nobody else would; I knew him somebody who dealt weed, psychedelic mushrooms and acid to my friends although I was persona-non-gratis with him because he was seriously criminally minded and led a gay bashing gang that mostly bashed straight people who were perceived as allies [1], although it took just one snarky comment (my case) or advising somebody being shot at with a paint pellet gun to see the police (the popular president of the paint pellet gun club.)

He eventually got caught bashing in an RA in the face with a rock shot with one of those rubber band catapults people use to shoot water balloons at the beach. He was banned from campus but I saw him once when he was dropping off a delivery for a friend. My friend later told me that he'd been caught on videotape dealing 3kg of cocaine to an undercover cop and he did time.

That's an unusual case. Except for that guy and the Vietnamese kid who took money and never delivered the weed to my wife when she was in high school, all the pot dealers I knew were basically responsible and law-abiding people who only dealt pot and other soft drugs. Funny somebody dropped a dime on the later.

[1] this was the 1980s during peak AIDS panic and I guess they were afraid if they spilled gay blood they might get AIDS or something

[Thraway198]

I live in a legalized Marijauna country and there is no black market. The prices in the legal stores are actually lower than the former black market prices.

[nephihaha]

In the UK currently, an estimated third of cigarettes are illegal, because of the high duty on tobacco. What will probably happen here is that the British government will do the same if cannabis is legalised. They are already starting ensuring that only they and their friends can supply medical cannabis, meaning that we don't have a proper open market before it's even started.

[Thraway198]

Well idk, we had some kind of open market here in Canada and it just ended up with a few big players, a million bankruptcies and weed for under $10 CAD a gram.

[nephihaha]

Some of those Canadian people probably did not have a good business plan, but it is clear the British government doesn't like the idea of a small grower with a few plants. Even though that should be allowed as much as it is with brewing.

[Thraway198]

Growing is totally separate from selling though. I don't know about the UK case but in Canada, there was intense opposition from Conservatives towards any amount of pot being allowed to be homegrown.

There were Conservative politicians who got up and publicly said that toddlers would die cause they'd eat marijuana plants grown by their parents!

I wouldn't blame the business plans so much. A lot of them applied for licenses but didn't get theirs approved till after the huge players did. By then, the market had already consolidated.