That's called anecdotes, and I have exactly the opposite experience in South Africa, England, New Zealand and Germany - maybe there's a cultural factor rather t

That's called anecdotes, and I have exactly the opposite experience in South Africa, England, New Zealand and Germany - maybe there's a cultural factor rather than something intrinsic to cannabis? So, who's right now? By what process should we try to get to the bottom of this? As a thought experiment, consider if coffee (caffeine is very much an addictive mind altering substance that can be harmful in large doses) were illegal and bought and used the same way people use cannabis. So you go to your coffee dealer, and he offers you some weed. Do you try it? Maybe. Ok, now he offers you some heroin. This is where studies should step in, but my not very meaningful belief / gut feeling is that most people will say holy crap, no thanks man, I just wanted my boring old beans and weed. This has been my experience (and that of people I know) for decades, and again I'd like to stress that that doesn't necessarily imply a great many general statements I might wish to conclude from it, no matter how "obvious" it seems to me.