Posted on 07/21/2006 5:34:00 AM PDT by Wolfie
Gateway to Nowhere?
The evidence that pot doesn't lead to heroin.
Earlier this month, professor Yasmin Hurd of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine released a study showing that rats exposed to the main ingredient in marijuana during their adolescence showed a greater sensitivity to heroin as adults. The wire lit up with articles announcing confirmation for the "gateway theory"—the claim that marijuana use leads to harder drugs.
It's a theory that has long seemed to make intuitive sense, but remained unproven. The federal government's last National Survey on Drug Use and Health, conducted in 2004, counted about 97 million Americans who have tried marijuana, compared to 3 million who have tried heroin (166,000 had used it in the previous month). That's not much of a rush through the gateway. And a number of studies have demonstrated that your chances of becoming an addict are higher if addiction runs in your family, or if heroin is readily available in your community, or if you're a risk-taker. These factors can account for the total number of heroin addicts, which could make the gateway theory superfluous.
On close inspection, Hurd's research, published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, doesn't show otherwise. For the most part, it's a blow to the gateway theory. To be sure, Hurd found that rats who got high on pot as adolescents used more heroin once they were addicted. But she found no evidence that they were more likely to become addicted than the rats in the control group who'd never been exposed to delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, marijuana's main ingredient.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
I can think of reasons ... but none of them are good.
Me? YOU'RE the one who made this personal by saying you've personally "never met anyone who has used heroin". Like that's significant or something.
And a percentage will use pot then move on to heroin. They move on possibly because they are naturally predisposed to drug use OR peer-pressure, OR they're exposed to it by their dealer, OR a number of reasons.
That's the group my hypothetical targets. Take away the pot, reduce the gateway effect.
In fact you would likely have more, because some who would have been satsified with pot will turn to heroin instead."
That's a big jump. More likely they would switch to another illegal soft drug or legal alcohol.
The question is, if we removed these "mild drugs" how many would jump right in to heroin?
Now in practicality, we cannot remove them. But we can make an effort to reduce them. Why wouldn't that reduce to number who moved on to harder drugs?
Conversely, wouldn't legalizing these mild drugs increase the number of users of mild drugs thereby increasing the number of those who move on to harder drugs?
The legality of alcohol has made it less likely that these law abiding "drug" users would gateway to illegal heroin.
"but making pot legal would increase the number of pot users, and therefore would increase the possibility of the number of heroin users because.....why is this?"
Making pot legal has two effects, both at odds with each other. On the one hand, a law abiding legal pot user, like today's alcohol user, will be less likely to gateway to illegal heroin.
On the other hand, there is a percentage who will gateway to illegal heroin (either from alcohol or legal pot). If the legalization of pot will increase the number of pot users (and I've always contended that pot use could at least double or triple), and a given percentage of those will gateway to heroin, we will have more heroin users.
What the NET result of both the effects combined would be, I don't know.
First, neither you nor I know what those numbers and percentages are. Second, legalizing marijuana in an effort to lower the percentage of marijuana users that go on to try heroin will result in an increase in the number of marijuana users.
So, we have a lower percentage of a higher number. The NET result is unknown.
But the "gateway effect" isn't supposed to have anything to do with the pot, remember? It just states that people who will smoke pot are more likely to try heroin than people who don't. The same goes for people who use alcohol, nicotine, or abuse prescription drugs.
Getting rid of the pot won't eliminate the other gateways, and won't change the predisposition. Do you really think you're going to make any discernible difference in the number of heroin users by eliminatiting pot, or is it another exercise in absolutes? If it saves just one, it's worth any price?
True, but to the same extent? These are legal drugs.
I think it's less likely that an alcohol user or cigarette smoker will gateway to an illegal drug like heroin than a pot user (who is already breaking the law and probably knows, or can get, a connection to heroin).
"Getting rid of the pot won't eliminate the other gateways, and won't change the predisposition."
One step at a time, huh?
"Do you really think you're going to make any discernible difference in the number of heroin users by eliminatiting pot, or is it another exercise in absolutes?"
Pot is already illegal. All I'm saying is that this is just one more reason not to legalize it and make it even more available.
"Taking away the pot" puts us right back into magic-wand land. You're hopeless.
You contradict yourself.
Then by the same token, the legality of alcohol has given us more heroin users.
I would guess so. If someone is willing to alter their consiousness, they will go with whatever options they have, even if the only option in this hypothetical is like taking the nuclear bomb of altered states.
Now in practicality, we cannot remove them. But we can make an effort to reduce them. Why wouldn't that reduce to number who moved on to harder drugs?
Because it doesn't have much of a correlation. You can look at a drug that the govt. has tried to reduce, marijuana, and see ebbs and flows in the rise and fall of heroin use throughout the past 50 years.
Conversely, wouldn't legalizing these mild drugs increase the number of users of mild drugs thereby increasing the number of those who move on to harder drugs?
I doubt it. Using alcohol as an example, the vast, vast majority of alcohol users don't go on to heroin, even though the vast, vast majority of heroin users have used alcohol in the past and/or present.
I would agree, for a myrid of reasons. Making pot legal has two effects, both at odds with each other. On the one hand, a law abiding legal pot user, like today's alcohol user, will be less likely to gateway to illegal heroin.
I agree again.
On the other hand, there is a percentage who will gateway to illegal heroin (either from alcohol or legal pot). If the legalization of pot will increase the number of pot users (and I've always contended that pot use could at least double or triple), and a given percentage of those will gateway to heroin, we will have more heroin users.
That's if you buy the theory that a person using a drug of any kind is more inclined to use a drug like heroin. I don't believe that is necessarily the case. I do know with prohibition, you tend to cut off the milder drugs and increase the harder drugs. I find it amazing that heroin is a much more available drug in the US than, say, raw opium, which was a staple in this country in the mid to late 1800's, yet a far less addictive drug than heroin.
Sorry, I got sorta dysleix in reading your question there in that response. I'm not sure how many would jump to heroin if there were no soft drug alternatives, but I believe many would if that was their only option.
I've never really "bought" the whole concept of a "gateway drug."
It's always seemed to me that there's something that you're born with that gives you a predilication to substance abuse, or some other type of addictive behavior. Either you have it or you don't I believe that's one of the reasons that we tend to see alcoholism run in families.
Of course, it's not the only reason, and I know that there are other than hereditary reasons for substance abuse, or addictive behavior in general.
I suppose that I'm very lucky in not being predisposed to addictive behavior, although I was told that my grandfather (a dentist) did become addicted to opiates. But I didn't find it particularly difficult to stop smoking when I decided to, for a while, I thought I might have a drinking problem (while college aged, I spent every night over a summer drunk), so I stopped drinking for about 10 years, and now I enjoy a beer now and then, when I feel like it (about one every other month). I enjoy gambling every now and then, but even though there are gambing boats in the KC area, I've only gone to gamble 3 times. And while I enjoy vacations in Las Vegas, the last time I was there, I stayed for 3 days, but gambled for less than 2 hours total.
I honestly believe that for the most part, heroin users "graduated" from other drugs (cigarettes, pot, coke), simply because the other drugs are far more easily obtained.
Mark
Are you referring to the end of Prohibition?
I thought we both agreed that the vast majority of heroin users did use other drugs before heroin. Mere coincidence?
I meant to add this to my other post. When I say "more inclined", I mean an existing drug user is more inclined to gateway to heroin than a non-user.
When you said "mild drugs" I didn't think that included alcohol. Take away the illegal mild drugs, and few would jump right into heroin. They'd either abstain or use alcohol.
Of course, and we've known this for YEARS. Most alcoholics start drinking young (like, for instance, a couple of my brothers-in-law - something like 11 and 14). This whole "marijuana is a gateway drug" debate is just plain idiotic.
People who believe this are confusing cause and effect. People with potentially addictive personalities are more likely to experiment with anything, irrespective of what. You would think "scientists" would recognize that.
And for all you drug warriors out there, I'm not a pothead. I'll pee in a cup for anyone any time. Caffeine and alcohol for me, baby. Nothing else.
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