What is a "Gateway" drug

[BikerDude]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/05/28/316673753/todays-heroin-addict-is-young-white-and-suburban

Heroin was once the scourge of the urban poor, but today the typical user is a young white suburbanite, a study finds. And the path to addiction usually starts with prescription painkillers.

A survey of 9,000 patients at treatment centers around the country found that 90 percent of heroin users were white men and women. Most were relatively young ? their average age was 23. And three-quarters said that they first started not with heroin but with abusing prescription opioids like OxyContin.

[LotsaBadKarma]

When I was a cop I arrested a lot of heroin addicts. At one point I conducted an informal survey with them during the booking process. I asked each of them if, as a child, they had ever dunked Oreo cookies in milk and followed that by eating the cookies and drinking the milk. Each and every one of them stated that he or she had, in fact, dunked Oreos in milk and then eaten the cookies and finished up by drinking the milk.
I came to the conclusion that dunking Oreo cookies in milk and then eating the cookies and drinking the milk is a "gateway" to heroin addiction.
As ridiculous as that sounds I think that there is a point to it. I could have substituted little chocolate donuts or grape Nehi. I don't believe that the addiction has as much to do with the so-called gateway drug as it has to do with serious issues that remain unresolved.
Many people use prescription painkillers in a responsible manner meaning only when they are needed. They don't go on to smoke crack or meth or shoot heroin. So the whole gateway drug thing, to me, seems like just another excuse to keep certain things illegal so that a select few can profit from their continued importation and sale. And by a select few I mean rich cocksuckers and their political pawns.
But that's just like my opinion, man.

[BikerDude]

When I was a cop I arrested a lot of heroin addicts. At one point I conducted an informal survey with them during the booking process. I asked each of them if, as a child, they had ever dunked Oreo cookies in milk and followed that by eating the cookies and drinking the milk. Each and every one of them stated that he or she had, in fact, dunked Oreos in milk and then eaten the cookies and finished up by drinking the milk.
I came to the conclusion that dunking Oreo cookies in milk and then eating the cookies and drinking the milk is a "gateway" to heroin addiction.
As ridiculous as that sounds I think that there is a point to it. I could have substituted little chocolate donuts or grape Nehi. I don't believe that the addiction has as much to do with the so-called gateway drug as it has to do with serious issues that remain unresolved.
Many people use prescription painkillers in a responsible manner meaning only when they are needed. They don't go on to smoke crack or meth or shoot heroin. So the whole gateway drug thing, to me, seems like just another excuse to keep certain things illegal so that a select few can profit from their continued importation and sale. And by a select few I mean rich cocksuckers and their political pawns.
But that's just like my opinion, man.

Yes!
The sort of logic that says that most heroin addicts started with weed is as useful as saying most rapist started with dancing. So lets outlaw dancing.