After tobacco and alcohol, marijuana is the third most popular recreational drug in New Zealand. The reason for this is simple, it is highly addictive. Some people may be thinking, alcohol and tobacco can be equally addictive and are quite clearly more lethal than marijuana, considering tobacco ranks first and the number of deaths caused by alcohol takes second place on the podium of death.
Given that as a fact, it is safe to say that marijuana due to its psychoactive properties has the ability to cause severe brain damage at a much faster rate as opposed to the latter.
Also, marijuana along with alcohol and tobacco is considered to be a gateway drug. The chances of an individual getting addicted to much harder illicit drugs after smoking marijuana are much higher than that of an individual addicted to either of the other two.
This gateway drug theory therefore, suggests that the only reason marijuana has been criminalised is because there is a very high chance of a user moving on and getting addicted to other substances. 
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