@Baalzamon, yes moderation is the key for most things in life. If you eat too much, sleep too much, do drugs too much, etc it will have a negative impact on your life. While marijuana isn't perfect (no drug is) I view it as one of the safest and most controllable (able to control yourself) drug there is on this planet. I wouldn't even go as far as saying people that smoked way too much weed as brain dead. Shit I smoked a shitload of weed in past 10 plus years (almost every day for the most part). However, I can wake up every day and be 100% effective as I was (same can't be said waking up hungover from alcohol). Brain damage only occurs with drugs such as ecstasy, possible tripping too much on acid, etc... And in fact those drugs don't cause total brain damage they just injure the brain (such as ecstasy releases too much happiness hormones at once which hurts those sensors).
On the gateway part.. If you have it illegal you are buying it from a drug dealer. Sometimes those drug dealers deal other drugs and offer that consumer another drug. That is the only thing that makes it a gateway drug is by having it illegal. You don't go into a store to buy a pack of smokes then the clerk offers you crack, but that could happen if someone goes to a drug dealer to buy a sack of weed.
Most of the studies are all full of shit. The main study people reflect back to say marijuana kills brain cells was in fact a bullshit study. They pumped monkeys full of weed smoke pretty much suffocating them with carbon dioxide. What happens when you are suffocating? Your brain cells start to die.
