. Since then, hard drug use--heroin and cocaine--have declined substantially. If marijuana really were a gateway drug, one would have expected the use of hard drugs to have gone up, not down. This apparent "negative gateway" effect has also been observed in the United States. Studies done in the early 1970s showed a negative correlation between marijuana and the use of alcohol. In 1993 a Rand Corporation study compared drug use in states that had decriminalized marijuana versus those that had not. The study showed that where marijuana was more available--hard drug use (according to emergency rooms) decreased. In short, what science and actual experience tell us is that marijuana tends to substitute for the much more dangerous hard drugs like alcohol, cocaine, and heroin.The statement "Legalization of marijuana would cause more car accidents on the highway" is yet another myth. Marijuana does impair a person's performance much like alcohol. However, studies of the effects of marijuana on automobile accidents suggest that it poses less of a hazard than alcohol. When a random sample of fatal accident victims was studied, it was found that marijuana was associated with relatively as many accidents as alcohol. However, a closer examination revealed that around 85% of the people intoxicated on marijuana were also intoxicated on alcohol. For people only intoxicated on marijuana, the rate was much lower than for alcohol alone. This evidence, has also been supported by other research using several completely different methods.To try and explain feeling stoned to someone who has never been there is very difficult. A survey in 1971 of 100 volunteers who were regular marijuana smokers produced the following results as to what being stoned actually is. Many users notice a greater sense of sound, increased hunger (eating a whole week's food in one night), thirst, dry mouth, feelings of increased empathy, and a feeling that time has slowed down. T...
