Pro-Pot Folks Take Note: New Study Provides Further Evidence that Marijuana Is a Gateway Drug

A new study looking at alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use among adolescents gives some interesting and helpful conclusions. Well, helpful conclusions if people will be willing to remove their cultural blinders concerning marijuana. Since the politically and culturally popular thing to do is to extol the virtues of the recreational use of marijuana, the study's sharp gateway-drug implications will most likely be a warning that is derided and unheeded.

Frankly, I don't really care if people smoke weed or not. To be clear, if asked, I'll warn against it. What bugs me, though, is that many who do choose to smoke weed deceive themselves (and others) about marijuana's potential for harm.

When I worked in a substance awareness program targeting eighth-graders, my co-workers and I could predict the pushback we would receive from the students: marijuana isn't addictive... marijuana doesn't cause any real, long-term, negative effects, blah, blah, blah.

While it's true that marijuana doesn't bring the same negative effects as, say, methamphetamine, it's not true that marijuana is completely devoid of any negative effects. For starters, it is addictive. Substances don't have to be physically addictive to be addictive. As my colleagues and I would tell the protesting students, shopping can be addictive.

A negative effect that comes from ingesting marijuana that many users (and non-users) scoff at is the drug's potential to be a gateway drug. However, the study linked to above concludes, "The implications of the more prominent role of marijuana in the early stages of drug use sequences are important to continue tracking."

The twenty-year study concluded that while cigarette and alcohol use among adolescents has decreased, marijuana use among adolescents has remained basically the same. What's interesting is that "the traditional gateway sequence is changing, with marijuana increasingly accounting for the first substance used among adolescents."

The study also acknowledges that adolescents who smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol have a greater risk of turning to marijuana. The authors of the study write:

Those who do engage in alcohol and cigarette use are increasingly a high-risk group for marijuana use. National data among adults with reconstructed life histories has demonstrated similar findings among today’s cohorts of cigarette users, in that they are also more likely to have psychiatric disorders and other drug disorders compared with previous cohorts of smokers ( Talati et al., 2016, 2013). Such findings are in line with hypotheses about ‘hardening’ of drug users.

The bad news for those adolescents who begin with marijuana as well as for those who are in a high-risk group for marijuana use due to their cigarette or alcohol use is that:

Marijuana initiation may also affect subsequent drug use through similar biological mechanisms that have been proposed for other substances; emerging evidence from animal models suggests that THC exposure early in adolescence influences reward sensitivity to other drugs including nicotine ( Dinieri and Hurd, 2012; Panlilio et al., 2013; Pistis et al., 2004), and that adult marijuana use who initiated in adolescence have impairments in memory and prefrontal as well hippocampal volume ( Batalla et al., 2013; Filbey and Yezhuvath, 2013). Existing epidemiological data suggest that marijuana use increases the risk of subsequent cigarette initiation, supporting the hypothesis that marijuana could be causally associated with subsequent polysubstance use ( Nguyen et al., 2018).

...but that isn’t scientific, that’s the mistake of “correlation is causation”.

I came to the USA from the UK at 16. The schools in the UK never said a thing about pot and I didn’t know anyone using it.

In my new USA high school our “health ed” class gave the impression that pot is incredibly dangerous, incredibly addictive, etc. etc.. I had no reason to believe otherwise.

...until I became aware that just about EVERYONE I HAD COME TO KNOW had at least tried it, if not using fairly regularly. I was shocked, although I didn’t see any of these people as “addicts”, they had good grades and had jobs etc.. So at a point I tried it too and found it to be nothing even close to what the teachers in high school had claimed. It was a lie. At this moment the thoughts ran through my head, “what else have they lied about?”. What about cocaine? What about all the others?

My point is, the kids stopped believing the “education” because they were inaccurate about weed. They lowered the “concern threshold” of trying other drugs. Also, if you’re likely to try hard drugs at some point, you’re likely try weed first only due to it being so very available - but that has nothing to do with weed being the “gateway” to everything else. I only knew of a couple of people that went on to do harder drugs - out of hundreds.

I’d argue cigarettes are the primary “gateway drug” as it’s the first thing kids growing up see adults smoking. The very concept of “smoking” would be a foreign concept without cigarettes. Without them, as far as weed is concerned, it would be the first time a kid would see somebody “smoke” anything - which would obviously be perceived as stupid.

At the end of the day, drinking, smoking tobacco, smoking weed are ALL indicators of addictive traits, of course somebody that is willing to do harder drugs will, most likely, try these first. MOST people that do try these DON’T go on to try anything harder.

To think that somebody wouldn’t do hard drugs unless they started on weed is weak - it’s only “on the path” due to accessibility, same as cigarettes - but nobody says that. I’d like to see a study of kids having divorced parents as it related to harder drug use. The whole issue of “seeking a higher high” is rooted in other problems, it isn’t CAUSED by weed.

Frankly, people who smoke weed, drink, smoke cigarettes, aren’t committing crime to get the next drink, the next joint, etc. - criminalizing it isn’t the answer. People who do the harder drugs are willing to do anything for their next “fix”. Prohibition of common substances isn’t good policy, it turns otherwise law abiding people into criminals.

Ugh...sorry for the long post :)

I have to respectfully say, sir, that you do not know what you are talking about.

I have a college degree, graduating early with honors in 3 years instead of 4, back in 1969.

I was an officer in the Air Force for 8 years.

I've had several successful careers in hospital administration, mortgage banking and commercial printing.

I own 3 homes from Arizona to South Carolina to Florida, all of them free and clear of debt.

I have an 800+ credit rating and am flush with liquid assets in my financial portfolio.

I am currently retired and raise beef cattle on my ranch in Florida.

I've been married for 44 years to a former Air Force officer and nurse practitioner.

I am healthy and active at age 71. I was a 10K and marathon road racer for 40 years. Now I walk an hour a day. I don't drink alcohol or smoke tobacco.

I've lived a very productive life, both personally and professionally.

But I've also been smoking pot daily for recreation since I was a freshman in college back in the 60s. It is a habit, not an addiction. If you stop smoking pot, there are no cravings, withdrawals or DT's like in alcohol and hard drug withdrawals. There is nothing.

People who smoke marijuana recreationally are not potheads, anymore than people who drink alcohol recreationally are liquor-heads. And it doesn't make them irrational, no matter how hard you want them to be.

There is no "gateway" that this study claims. People don't do harder drugs because they smoke pot. They do so because their personalities are predisposed to addictive and destructive behavior.

Time to dispense with the government's marijuana hysteria they've had since "Reefer Madness" was their propaganda film.

Agreed. I know almost no one whose life was made better by using marijuana - a small number of people with glaucoma, going through chemotherapy, or facing similar medical issues.

Nice to meet you.

Pot helped me get over my first wife's adultery and the divorce that followed. In fact, pot was the only thing that helped stop the endless loop in my mind - what went wrong, how could I not have seen this, how could I put this back together - that plagued me 24 hours a day when the emotional pain was the worst, in the very early days.

Psychiatry, and the pharmaceuticals I was prescribed - Zoloft - were worthlessly ineffective.

If I smoked a joint, however, my brain would relax, and that relaxation gave my spirit time to heal...just like staying off your feet helps a twisted ankle or a bad knee to heal. Not only that, but with my brain more relaxed, I picked up my guitar and made music.

So there you go.

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