How did the marijuana gateway myth get started?
First, there is no drug that will magically give you a craving for other drugs you have never had. That is a belief in witchcraft, not science. Hemp was George Washington’s primary crop, and a secondary crop for Thomas Jefferson, so hemp has been around in America for a long time, without apparently causing much destruction in society. Each sailing ship carried several tons of hemp in its rope and sails, so cultivation of hemp was a major industry. Even though cannabis was widely grown, there were no allegations that it led to harder drugs. In 1910, they believed that the certain steppingstone to opiate addiction was “eating Mexicanized food”. The fundamental idea comes from America’s puritanical history. It is the idea that pleasure is sinful, and small pleasures lead to cravings for larger pleasures. In this example, those who crave spicy food will inevitably crave larger pleasures, such as opium. In the 1920s, some states outlawed marijuana because of the belief that heroin addictio
