Disproving the “Gateway Drug” Theory
Some food for thought…
Ever since marijuana was outlawed in the early 20th century, there’s been a public stigma against it. Many people deny that it’s a medicine and call it a “gateway drug,” claiming that marijuana usage, regardless of it being medical or not, escalates into opiate abuse in most cases. This theory isn’t just false, but dangerous.
The theory of “gateway drugs” relies on an age-old idea that “dabbling in marijuana” will lead to “dabbling in cocaine and opiates or hard drugs,” and eventually lead to drug addiction. Scientists have abandoned this theory long ago. In 1999, Congress commissioned a report to understand medical marijuana safety more comprehensivel. The report states:
“Patterns in progression of drug use from adolescence to adulthood are strikingly regular. Because it is the most widely used illicit drug, marijuana is predictably the first illicit drug most people encounter. Not surprisingly, most users of other illicit drugs have used marijuana first. In fact, most drug users begin with alcohol and nicotine before marijuana — usually before they are of legal age.
In the sense that marijuana use typically precedes rather than follows initiation of other illicit drug use, it is indeed a “gateway” drug. But because underage smoking and alcohol use typically precede marijuana use, marijuana is not the most common, and is rarely the first, “gateway” to illicit drug use. There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs.”
The most recent “gateway theory” still states that dabbling in marijuana can lead to harder drugs, however, a new study is pushing all of the weak science away, as many anti-marijuana advocates often use the weak science from the “gateway theory” to spread misinformation.
Using data from Michigan’s “Monitoring the future” survey, this new study has shown that marijuana is, in fact, not a gateway drug, and that alcohol is the primary “gateway drug” that leads young adults and teens to try hard drugs.
As many medical professionals continue to prescribe marijuana to patients suffering from all types of ailments, the idea that marijuana is a “gateway drug” is slowly dying. Anti-marijuana activists continue to use the pseudoscience-backed claim that smoking marijuana, even medicinally, will lead to drug use. Addiction prevention experts should be focusing their efforts on alcohol education, rather than perpetuating rumors and spreading pseudoscience-backed claims.
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