Joe vs. Weed

I don't know--why don't you ask him?

[deleted]

Whenever anyone suggests legalizing marijuana, Joe always counters with his argument that ALL hard drug users started by smoking marijuana.

It's a very flawed argument, to say the least. Even if it really is 100%, that one number, by itself, proves nothing.

(For the statistically minded -- in order to draw any sort of inference, all four of these numbers must be known: how many druggies (hard drug users) used pot; how many druggies did not use pot; how many non-druggies used pot; and how many non-druggies did not use pot.)

However, one big question should be, "How many marijuanan users started by smoking regular cigarettes?"

Yeah, or "how many marijuana users started by drinking milk when they were infants?" By Joe's logic, very nearly 100% did, therefore milk is bad for babies.

Or better still, how about this one? Nearly 100% of pot users drank milk as babies, but only a small fraction drank alcohol -- so if you don't want your kid to grow up to be a stoner, dump the milk down the drain and put Jack Daniel's in his bottle instead. 