via HighTimes.com

WASHINGTON, DC – Marijuana’s reputation as a “gateway” drug was recently corroborated by a recent study showing an incredibly high correlation between how long a person has used the drug and the frequency with which he or she brings it up in conversation.

Marijuana users’ tendency to move onto more dangerous habits has long been used as an argument for lawmakers to criminalize the drug’s use.

“Light marijuana use in itself, as we know, is not very damaging,” said Sam Stone, the lead scientist who authored the report.  “But our study shows that long term use can often lead to the far more detrimental vice of not shutting the fuck up about it.”

The FDA-sponsored study revealed that for the average person who does not use marijuana, only 2% of interactions contain a mention of the drug.  For those who have used for 3-5 months, typically around the time of their purchase of their first Cheech and Chong poster, this frequency spikes to a shocking 96%.

Stone believes his findings shed light on what many suspected to be true of those who have seen their relationships with marijuana-using friends painfully deteriorate.

“More so than their likelihood to use heroin or methamphetamine, a long-term marijuana smoker is most frighteningly prone to becoming completely unbearable as a conversation partner within a year of beginning the habit,” he said.

According to anonymous sources, a major obstacle to the study’s completion was the frequency of lab assistants who quit the job, unable to listen to another second of conversation solely about “the best kinds of gravity bongs.”