, Columnist
Will Legal Pot Mean Fewer Drug Addicts?
It's at least plausible that selling marijuana in legal dispensaries will cut down on users' access to drugs such as cocaine and heroin.
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One of Andrew Sullivan's readers has an interesting theory about why marijuana might be a gateway drug:
I'm not sure how true this is -- most people I know who tried harder drugs got them from the friends they smoked pot with, not the guy who sold it to them. On the other hand, it's at least plausible ... which would mean that although legalization would probably cause marijuana use (and abuse) to rise, the paradoxical result might be a decline in the use of harder drugs.