he most significant gateway drug, but it is also a drug that has been losing influence:
Marijuana has been widely feared as the "gateway drug" that leads teenagers from smoking joints to experimenting with stronger stuff, such as cocaine and heroin. In 1978, according to government surveys, a staggering 10 percent of all high school seniors smoked marijuana every day. Today the percentage has dropped by half. That is still way too high, but attitudes have changed markedly. Only one quarter of high school seniors reported that marijuana was a dangerous drug in 1978, but now fully 75 percent do (Thomas 60).
At the same time, while the government continues to operate as if marijuana were a gateway drug, many researchers disagree and find that some claims undercut the drug war. Over-stating the dangers of marijuana has probably had the opposite effect from that intended, suggesting to young people who realize that the idea that marijuana is a deadly poison is a lie to question all warnings about drugs on the assumption that others as well may be exaggerations. For this reason, it is not surprising that drug use has increased among the most propagandized generation in history, with nearly all the increase accounted for by casual pot smoking:
You don't have to smoke marijuana yourself, or even have a very wide circle of friends, to find plenty of anecdotal evidence that the drug is neither partic
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