Was Marijuana the Gateway or Just Impressing Shelley?
For years my family tried to tell me that marijuana was a gateway drug. I did not believe them. I was doing good. I was a good student, my friends were cool, none of us were losers or into hard drugs. We just had marijuana sometimes to relax when we were all hanging out. We went on to college. It was no big deal. Still, my mom kept telling me it was a gateway drug and I always had an argument against it.
So off to college I went. My friends and I were having a blast, getting to call the shots, be our own bosses. We made it through our freshman year and decided as sophomores that we were grown and wanted an apartment off campus. That is when I met Shelley.
Shelley lived next door and I fell for her the first moment I laid eyes on her. She came to one of our parties and when we brought out the marijuana, she laughed. She said it was for babies, that she she smoked it until she “graduated” to better stuff. She brought out some crystal meth. Not wanting to look like a baby to the gorgeous neighbor I was smitten with, I tried it. You can guess the rest, right?
My grades plummeted. Shelley dumped me for her meth dealer. I went home. My mother told me “See? I was right. Marijuana is the gateway to other drugs.” My mom helped me get clean and I ended up graduating a year and a half later than I should have from college.
That argument still exists to this day. Is marijuana a gateway to other drugs? Yes and no. Yes, if you are on marijuana, you could be more inclined to take something stronger. Some people do it because marijuana no longer “does it” for them as those in my N.A. Group stated. In my case, though? I have to call a spade a spade. If there was a definitive reason? It was closer to peer pressure without the pressure. I wanted to impress Shelley. So in my case, I have to say marijuana was not a gateway. However, my mother and a couple of people in my support group gave me a sound argument to think about: was it the fact that I was already high from the marijuana that night? Was marijuana the gateway or just impressing Shelley? I do not know. Maybe, it was a combination of both. Either way, I got clean and I do not take either one now. That is the most important fact of all in my own story.
