Study: Marijuana Does Not Lead to Hard Drugs

Reuters ^ | Dec. 2, 2002 | unknown

[Sparta]

— WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Countering a basic principle of American anti-drug policies, an independent U.S. study concluded on Monday that marijuana use does not lead teenagers to experiment with hard drugs like heroin or cocaine.

The study by the private, nonprofit RAND Drug Policy Research Center rebutted the theory that marijuana acts as a so-called gateway drug to more harmful narcotics, a key argument against legalizing pot in the United States.

The researchers did not advocate easing restrictions in marijuana, but questioned the focus on this substance in drug control efforts.

Using data from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse between 1982 and 1994, the study concluded teenagers who took hard drugs were predisposed to do so whether they tried marijuana first or not.

"Kids get their first opportunity to use marijuana years before they get their first exposure to hard drugs," said Andrew Morral, lead author of the RAND study.

"Marijuana is not a gateway drug. It's just the first thing kids often come across."

Morral said 50 percent of U.S. teenagers had access to marijuana by the age of 16, while the majority had no exposure to cocaine, heroin or hallucinogens until they were 20.

The study, published in the British journal Addiction, does not advocate legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana, which has been linked to side-effects including short-term memory loss.

But given limited resources, Morral said the U.S. government should reconsider the prominence of marijuana in its much-publicized "war on drugs."

"To a certain extent we are diverting resources away from hard drug problems," he said. "Spending money on marijuana control may not be having downstream consequences on the use of hard drugs."

Researchers say predisposition to drug use has been linked to genetic factors and one's environment, including family dynamics and the availability of drugs in the neighborhood.

[thegreatbeast]

"Air is/was used by an amazingly large percentage of those people who abuse(d) drugs. So what?"
The amazingly large percentage of drug abusers who use(d) marijuana too DOES suggest that cannabis is a gateway drug. Why is that so hard to accept?
Let's make it personal for the people reading this thread: Have you used marijuana? Is that the only illegal drug you have used?
The answers will be telling, I'm sure.
P.S. Honesty required.

[MrLeRoy]

The amazingly large percentage of drug abusers who use(d) marijuana too DOES suggest that cannabis is a gateway drug.

True or false: "The amazingly large percentage of drug abusers who use(d) air too DOES suggest that air is a gateway substance."

[realpatriot71]

If it were a "personality" issue, then why wouldn't there be a connection between alcohol and hard drugs? I don't see anyone trying to make that connection.

Probably because alcohol is legal. The type of person who would take a risk for a high is likely to take that same risk with any drug. It depends on what your "cost benefit" analysis of the situation is, and this is colored by many aspects including personality, temperment, family life, etc.

It's like an analogy I made earlier, dinner is not a "gateway" to dessert, but rather dessert just happens to come first. It's about the causal nature of the relationship. Does one lead to another, or does one just happen to come first.

There may be some good arguments against MJ, but "gateway drug" isn't one of them and only makes your side look silly.

[realpatriot71]

Sometimes it's interesting what gets removed from a thread, and what gets to stay, huh?

[MrLeRoy]

The RAND Corp. press release:

A new study by the RAND Drug Policy Research Center casts doubt on claims that marijuana acts as a "gateway" to the use of cocaine and heroin, challenging an assumption that has guided U.S. drug policies since the 1950s. However, the study does not argue that marijuana should be legalized or decriminalized.

The theory that the use of marijuana by young people causes some to graduate to harder drugs, often called the "gateway effect," has been used most recently to counter efforts to relax marijuana laws in several states. Earlier it was used to justify the imposition of tough penalties against the possession of even small amounts of marijuana.

Evidence supporting claims of marijuana's gateway effects has been found in many epidemiological studies of adolescent drug use. For instance, these studies found that marijuana users are up to 85 times more likely to use hard drugs than those who do not use marijuana, and few hard drug users do not use marijuana first.

"We've shown that the marijuana gateway effect is not the best explanation for the link between marijuana use and the use of harder drugs," said Andrew Morral, associate director of RAND's Public Safety and Justice unit and lead author of the study. "An alternative, simpler and more compelling explanation accounts for the pattern of drug use you see in this country, without resort to any gateway effects. While the gateway theory has enjoyed popular acceptance, scientists have always had their doubts. Our study shows that these doubts are justified."

The study demonstrates that associations between marijuana and hard drug use could be expected even if marijuana use has no gateway effect. Instead, the associations can result from known differences in the ages at which youths have opportunities to use marijuana and hard drugs, and known variations in individuals' willingness to try any drugs, researchers found.

The RAND study and a series of commentaries about the report are published in the December edition of the British journal Addiction, a peer-reviewed scientific publication.

"The people who are predisposed to use drugs and have the opportunity to use drugs are more likely than others to use both marijuana and harder drugs," Morral said. "Marijuana typically comes first because it is more available. Once we incorporated these facts into our mathematical model of adolescent drug use, we could explain all of the drug use associations that have been cited as evidence of marijuana's gateway effect."

"This is a very important study with broad implications for marijuana control policy," said Charles R. Schuster, a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and now director of the Addiction Research Institute at Wayne State University. "I can only hope that it will be read with objectivity and evaluated on its scientific merits, not reflexively rejected because it violates most policy makers' beliefs."

RAND researchers say it is unlikely that any study will be conducted that definitively settles the marijuana gateway debate. But the authors say their study should raise questions about the legitimacy of basing national drug policy decisions on the assumption that one of the harmful effects of marijuana use is the increased risk of using more dangerous drugs.

"If our model is right, it has significant policy implications," Morral said. "For example, it suggests that policies aimed at reducing or eliminating marijuana availability are unlikely to make any dent in the hard drug problem. When enforcement resources that could have been used against heroin and cocaine are instead used against marijuana, this could have the unintended effect of worsening heroin and cocaine use."

However, the study does not conclude that marijuana should be legalized or decriminalized. "Even without the effects of a marijuana gateway, relaxing marijuana prohibitions could affect the incidence of hard drug use by diminishing the stigma of drug use generally, thereby increasing adolescents' willingness to try hard drugs," Morral said. "Moreover, marijuana itself can be a serious problem for those who become dependent on it."

Other authors of the report are Daniel McCaffery and Susan Paddock of RAND's Drug Policy Research Center, a joint program of RAND's Public Safety and Justice Program and RAND Health.

RAND researchers tested the marijuana gateway theory by creating a mathematical model simulating adolescent drug use. Rates of marijuana and hard drug use in the model matched those observed in survey data collected from representative samples of youths from across the United States. Without assuming any gateway effect, the model produced patterns of drug use and abuse remarkably similar to what is experienced across the nation, showing that a marijuana gateway effect is not needed to explain the observed behavior.

The black market in marijuana in the United States is estimated at $10 billion per year, and more than 700,000 people are arrested on marijuana charges each year. Some states have passed laws easing penalties for marijuana use. Voters in several states rejected ballot propositions in November that would have approved similar changes.

A series of commentaries by other addiction researchers that accompany the RAND study discuss some of the implications of the research and whether there is any way to create a study to unequivocally answer the marijuana gateway question.

[Smogger]

My point, and I restate it unapologetically, is that marijuana is/was used by an amazingly large percentage of those people who abuse(d) other drugs. Anybody want to try to refute that? Then why is it so hard to accept?

Sure I'll refute it. My evidence is largely anecdotal. In my experience hard core drug users that DO NOT like marijuana because it mitigates the effects of the narcotics/opiates they are taking. People that use speed or coke for example like the edginess, alertness, appetite supression, and false clarity that those drugs bring. Consuming a hallucinagen like marijuana, which is a muscle relaxer, causes confusion, and increases appetite will only negate some of the effects of narcotics. Therefore, you are not going to find too many speed freaks or cokeheads smoking weed.

Furthermore, as for what drug they started with, while marijuana may have been the first illicit drug used, I think that you will find if you conducted interviews with users, that tobacco and were alcohol, probably in that order, were the first drugs they ever used.

If marijuana is a "gateway" drug it's because it's illegal. Forcing would-be drug buyers to purchase it from ans associate with drug dealers who many of whom also sell hardcore narcotics.

[MrLeRoy]

Oops ... meant that as a followup to post 41.

[Trailerpark Badass]

One day, a young Keith Richards thought he'd "try" a puff of a marijuana cigarette...

Yeah, poor Keith Richards, who is rockin' and rollin' on a hugely profitable concert tour. What is he now? 60?

Poor guy.

[truenospinzone]

The amazingly large percentage of drug abusers who use(d) marijuana too DOES suggest that cannabis is a gateway drug. Why is that so hard to accept?

Because, as I stated in a previous response, it makes no such suggestion. The number of cocaine users who used marijuana first is irrelevant to the "gateway drug" theory. It means nothing. The relevant statistic here is the number of marijuana users who go on to use cocaine, and, as this and dozens of other independent studies show, THAT number isn't very kind to the WODdies point of view.

Let's make it tangible - we've got twenty people who have used marijuana. Eight of them have used cocaine. All eight of the cocaine users used marijuana first. At first glance, that would seem to make your point. But the number means nothing, because you've got twelve marijuana users who never used anything else. Now, the WODdies point to those eight users and scream "gateway drug", while the independent studies point to the twelve who never graduated to anything else and make the more accurate connection: a person who is predisposed to use harder drugs most certainly used or abused tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana first, because they had access to those things first. However, the statistical majority of marijuana users don't go on to other, harder drugs, and thus the "gateway drug" myth is debunked.

And, to play your "personal" game: I smoked cigarettes at the age of twelve, drank to intoxication at fourteen, and smoked marijuana, although not with any regularity, from the age of fifteen. At eighteen I became an abuser of the legal drugs Vicodin and Percocet, which I had easy, cheap access to. I never used any hard drugs, haven't smoked marijuana or tobacco in several years, and now only occasionally drink past the point of sobriety, and certainly take nothing stronger than Tylenol for pain.

[TopQuark]

Thanks. It is much more clear and better stated than the original article.

It appears that the finding is that of a common antecedent: the predisposition for drug use.

As for the policy implications, suppose that the authirs are correct, the gateway effect is not a cause. They established, then, that MJ use is a great detector of the subsequent use of harder drugs. So, why not continue preventing it so that a person caught does NOT graduate to harder drugs?

[kidd]

The study by the private, nonprofit RAND Drug Policy Research Center rebutted the theory that marijuana acts as a so-called gateway drug to more harmful narcotics

In similar news, NOW has completed a study that demonstrates that the world would have no crime or disease if men were simply eliminated...

Also, NAMBLA has completed a study that shows that young male children are not harmed by sex with an adult...

The PLO has finished a study that shows that Jews are extraterrestrials and that we are all in grave danger from them...

[Always Right]

Using data from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse between 1982 and 1994, the study concluded teenagers who took hard drugs were predisposed to do so whether they tried marijuana first or not.

LOL, all behavior is predisposed according to the pointee heads. We are just dumb animals who have no free will....

[tacticalogic]

I've yet to meet an alcoholic that would do hard drugs. What percentage of hard drug users were former alcoholics vs. former pot smokers? I'm not saying that one leads to the other. But if one's personality leads them to some initial drug (alcohol or marijuana), then the statistics for that individual to progress to harder drugs should be the same. But I don't think that's the case.

IMHO, substance abusers tend to have a "drug of choice". The fallacy of your argument is that you're comparing "pot smokers" to "alcoholics". A valid comparison might be made between former alcoholics and former marijuana addicts, or between former social drinkers and former pot smokers. A "former addict" of any substance is much more likely to go back to their old habit than to take up a new one.

[MrLeRoy]

suppose that the authirs are correct, the gateway effect is not a cause. They established, then, that MJ use is a great detector of the subsequent use of harder drugs. So, why not continue preventing it so that a person caught does NOT graduate to harder drugs?

For one thing, almost all advocates of marijuana legalization support it remaining illegal for those below the age of majority---which is when most harder drug users started with pot. So legalization for adults would not lessen their disincentives (and would most likely decrease the availability of pot for minors, since sellers would have a new economic incentive to not sell to minors, namely, the risk of losing their legal adult business).

[robertpaulsen]

In my post, I stated very clearly that I wasn't saying that one drug leads to another. And that wasn't my point, anyway.

But you did clarify things with your emphasis on the "risky" aspect of one's personality. I wonder what this individual would do if marijuana were legal -- go straight to hard drugs? Seriously, I think yours is an interesting theory, and I'm just trying to flesh it out.

There are people who like to drink. Some of those like to drink alot. We (the public in general) don't consider alcohol to be a "gateway" drug. And my question is, why do some consider marijuana to be a "gateway" drug? Again, I'm not saying it is, just why would people think that when they don't think that about alcohol?

Your theory is that illegality (and the associated risk taking) plays a role. It could. And if it did, then wouldn't marijuana likely be a gateway drug for that group of "risk" takers? Just a thought.

[MrLeRoy]

So you're claiming that RAND has ideological preconceptions about drugs? Do you have evidence for your claim?

[MrLeRoy]

LOL, all behavior is predisposed according to the pointee heads. We are just dumb animals who have no free will....

Consult a dictionary. Predisposition is not compulsion.

[MrLeRoy]

Your theory is that illegality (and the associated risk taking) plays a role.

Which is hardly an argument for keeping marijuana illegal---rather the opposite, if anything.

[robertpaulsen]

Always looking for every little reason to legalize, no matter the subject of discussion. I'll give you credit for persistence.

[breakem]

Did you just compare Rand to Nambla, the PLO, and NOW, or did I miss your point?