Since I am more than likely to hear about the RAND analysis concerning marijuana, I would like to restate a few of the paragraphs from the press release, namely the first and fifth-from-last:

A new study by the RAND Drug Policy Research Center casts doubt on claims that marijuana acts as a “gateway” to the use of cocaine and heroin, challenging an assumption that has guided U.S. drug policies since the 1950s. However, the study does not argue that marijuana should be legalized or decriminalized.

However, the study does not conclude that marijuana should be legalized or decriminalized. “Even without the effects of a marijuana gateway, relaxing marijuana prohibitions could affect the incidence of hard drug use by diminishing the stigma of drug use generally, thereby increasing adolescents’ willingness to try hard drugs,” Morral said. “Moreover, marijuana itself can be a serious problem for those who become dependent on it.”

In short, the problem is the drug culture – not marijuana per se. Clearly there is a need for Florida dispensaries to provide a service to patients with a medicinal need. The lack of hard evidence of whether or not marijuana leads to people progressing onto more dangerous drugs is a damning indictment against the attitude that has long-been spurted at us in the media over the past fifty years. This supports what a lot of people have always thought: just because you enjoy using marijuana and buy claw concentrates for your own use, it does not mean you will go on to start using dangerous hard drugs. Marijuana should not be a scapegoat any longer. Click here to read up on different types of marijuana and what their individual effects are, knowledge will help people and stop inciting panic. For example, if you’d like to read up on some benefits of various marijuana strains that have been grown within controlled environments and can hold an array of medical properties and benefits, you are able to visit this website and others similar that may contain marijuana knowledge. The full report will be published in the December edition of the British journal Addiction.