I was through the gateway before i even smoked weed.
Ive just always been interested in drugs. Since i was 12 id look up different ones id see on drugs inc and different drug shows on tv. By the time i actually started smoking weed, 2 years later, i was an Erowid expert hahaha. Already read LSD and X synths, dmt extractions, how to make meth, just about everything i could find videos of or papers about id read and learn. Never with the intention of doing it.... yet. But then once i started smoking i did only that for a while, started growing when i started smoking because i had already researched how easy it was before i even started smoking.
Then, no influence by weed, i wanted to do acid and shrooms really bad. Just cause ive seen all the documentaries and things about them. It seemed like something id like it. Tried em both and they were some of my favorite experiences ever. Still love acid and shrooms to this day, but only do them occasionally. I can do a line of some oxys and no harm or addiction. I just have good self control.
Also, i live in a pretty ghetto place and alot of people sell crack and rondo. Ive never ONCE been told "well i dont have any weed, do you want some pills or crack?"
Maybe its just where i live, but people look out for people. They sell to the junkies cause theyre gonna get it from someone no matter what, but they wont start some random person on that shit. A friend of mine sold crack and always said hed never sell it to me or my friends even if i wanted it. He said i could come at him with a stack and he still wouldnt sell me it.
All that being said, some people brains are just stuck on ADDICTED. My cousins is. Smokes weed like a fiend. Smokes cigs like a fiend. If im not free to smoke with him hell run to the closest person selling any type of drug and buy it. Hes not actually addicted to anything, other than the act of taking drugs.
So personality has alot to do with it. Pre existing conditions giving you a higher chance of becoming an addict and stuff. Parents being addicts combined other family problems.
In the end if we all enjoyed weed enough and it was legal, you wouldnt have as many people treat it like crack or heroine. Have a drink with your dad have a smoke with your mom. Bringing families together instead of one hiding in the garage smoking, the parents thinking hes on a harder drug, sending him to rehab or he gets caught for minor possession and sentenced to probation, then since it stays in your system so long he switches to pills that you can work out of you body within days. Ive seen it happen way too much and kill some of my friends. Shit sucks. So lets fight to make it legal.