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 ...
The gateway theory is NOT that pot smokers become addicted to heroin more often than non-pot smokers become addicted, or that they will consume more heroin once addicted -- the theory is that they are more likely to TRY heroin. Period.
And what does the author say about this? "Her study doesn't speak to whether they'd be more likely to try the drug."
What a waste of time. Common sense says that pot smokers are more more likely to try others drugs, including stronger drugs.
It seems Slate is the only one reporting that the study found that exposure to marijuana was NOT a factor in the addiction rates of the rats.
Seems like you'd be interested in the study. The first step in approaching any problem is to understand clearly what it is. If the association is cultural rather than pharmaceutical then this should be valuable information.
Both groups of rats became addicted at the same rate. This was not reported in the MSM.
Indeed. But the party line is that the problem lies in the substance, not the people.
"Dairy products, Mandrake, childrens' dairy products.
They lead to mucus. I drink only pure, distilled water."
How 'bout parents and their peer group chain smoking cigarettes (for the early boomers before the first Surgeon General's report.) I'm partial to a 'what's on the menu' (what's not.) narrative for addiction (and gender deviancy). A lot of us spent much of our lives wrapped in a cloud of second hand cigarette smoke. Libertarianism makes for really insightful polemics, but in real life it's probably best to protect young'uns from smoke, porno and generally trashy media influence. Thank *** I never bred none in the present culture.
No one is claiming that. Otherwise we'd have 97 million heroin users, wouldn't we?
The question is, is it more likely that a pot user would try heroin vs. a person who eats carrots trying heroin (as cited earlier)? Do you need a study to tell you what you common sense tells you?
Or are you going to sit there like a two-year-old in a highchair, kicking and screaming, demanding absolute, incontrovertible proof of that connection before you will accept it?
I have an alternate theory, regardless of what the article concludes......smoking marijuana on a regular basis contributes heavily in bringing out an underlying condition which many people have, but are not totally aware of. This condition is what I will call "stupid". I have 10 years or so of research on working age adults to prove it. After a weekend of casual marijuana use, even the lower THC, cheaper varieties, employees will come back to work Monday, or Tuesday in a state of "stupid".
I hope they find a cure for it, maybe by taxing pot we can convince the government to do more research on this important issue. A cure could revolutionize humanity.
I'm pretty sure most kids try cigarettes before they try beer. My first illicit drug experience was a Pall Mall when I was 8 yrs old. Tried beer in my teens. Hated it. Still smoke weed. Never even tried heroin or cocaine or meth. My simple rule: no pills, no powders, and all things in moderation--including moderation.
Great . . . this means unless the federal government steps in and does something, my son is destined to become a pothead. Or a Democrat!
A very good point. The drug war has caused a lot more harm than its prevented. We need to reign it in.
Quite possibly the lamest word ever coined on FR . . .
I completely agree with this. There is a universe of difference between a person who smokes pot, and a person who smokes pot and becomes immersed in the whole "pot" lifestyle.
Keep hope alive. I did everything I could to keep my son from becoming a Democrat. Now he hangs out in Boston too much and already I see the urban infection setting in. I suppose he'll expect the military to save his ass when the war breaks out. I tried nothing and nothing works! He STILL isn't a pothead.
Why does "common sense" say that? The study that is cited in the article seems to indicate just the opposite.... 97 million pot users, 3 million heroin users. What percentage of the 97 million that have tried pot have tried heroin? Any figures on that? Perhaps it's just the opposite of what you believe to be "common sense" - pot smokers think that pot, mind-altering but less addictive than heroin, is a warning not to venture further.
You're making an assumption about attitudes, and then an assumption about a connection between attitude and behavior. Are people who ride bicycles as children "more likely" to drive autos as adults, because they become used to personal transportation by machine? (Just "common sense", after all.) Or do they learn to drive at the same rate as the rest of the population? I don't know. But I cannot assume the causation.
And I certainly couldn't logically argue that bicycle-riding is the "gateway" to drunken driving. Common sense needs to be supported with facts, or it's just superstition.
You may not appreciate this distinction, but I would say those who would smoke pot are more likely to be willing to try other drugs. In other words, I truly don't believe that there is anything inherent in smoking marijuana that causes someone to try other drugs. But obviously, there's a large group of people unwilling to try illegal drugs at all, and a smaller group that is willing. It makes perfect sense that there would be more heroin users coming from that smaller group. I'm quite sure that the incidence of heroin use among non- potsmoking church ladies is extremely low. Sort of goes without saying, doesn't it?
Do you get what I mean? But that doesn't mean that smoking pot causes heroin use or cocaine use or even makes it more likely. I guess what I'd say is that all this boils down to is that someone who does drugs is more likely to do drugs. Duh. It's like saying high school football players are more likely to play basketball than science club geeks. But that doesn't mean football LEADS to basketball. It just means that from the group that does the one, you'll get more who do the other. Reasonable?
So, out of 97 million pot smokers, 3 million have tried heroin, about 3 percent. I wonder what percent of 97 million non-pot smokers have tried heroin? I suspect it's probably far lower than 3 percent.
Although the likelihood of trying heroin is very small among pot smokers, it is probably far higher than among abstainers. This is not because of any physical dependency effect of pot, but, rather, because of a social effect. For example, the odds of one day running for political office are probably very small among members of high school debate teams. But they are probably far higher than they would be among students in high school auto shop classes.
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