Posted on 12/02/2002 2:42:58 PM PST by 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.
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.
Nobody said that people progress to cocaine while they are still teenagers.
By focusing on teenagers, the study cannot generalize to other populations, such as that of 20-30 year-olds, for instance. This is called a threat to external validity.
"Marijuana is not a gateway drug. It's just the first thing kids often come across."
What kind of logic is that? It's like saying, "The engine of a car is not a simple mechanism. It's just something people use to get to work." The second sentence has nothing to do with the first.
Does logic always fail this author or only when he reports his results?
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.
There you go: so there is such thing as time after all. Another blunder:
"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."
But his study is cross-sectional rather than longitudinal; he did not even gather evidence that may support or contradict this assertion.
People like this author would not survive a year in engineering or science. But in "social sciences," such people even get outside funding. It is they who report to you on even numbered years that coffee is bad for you and, respectively, on odd-numbered years that it is harmless.
Let's say what you say is true. Who cares? The legality of one substance cannot be based upon the possibility that those who consume it may consume something else. And whose business is it if they do anyway?
No it isn't. It speaks to the nature causal relationship. Take people who eat dessert. Did their meal lead them to (make them) eat the dessert, or did the meal just happen to come first.
Gateway drug theory says that MJ use will lead to harder drugs. The study just says that people who are going to use hard drugs are going to use hard drugs wether MJ is the first drug they come across or not. Get it?
One day two of them came over and matter-of-factly told us they were going out to score some crack. Crack. They'd never tried it and wanted to see what it was like. One guy said "I can't wait to try that sh!t!". My roommate and I blew it off; they were Pikes (Pi Kappa Alpha) i.e. little rich brats with too much money and time on their hands. Not much of a loss to society.
Years later another little preppy rich girl that I went to high school with in the late '80s got gunned down in a drug deal gone bad in a pretty bad part of my hometown. She was buying crack as well. And yes, she was a big dopehead in high school.
Like who has time for that???
Needless to say, I had to go freelance.
Why? The government's insatiable need for money. Only so much can be extracted from legalized gambling, the tobacco settlement cash will dry up when MO et.al. go into bankruptcy under the crushing burden of other verdicts against them. I just can't see the government passing up on this revenue stream for much longer.
Same here. I've never used a "hard drug" while having plenty of oppourtunity
It does, however, lead me to things like Super Troopers and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Make of that what you will.
For me it has always seemed to lead to dorritos, a snickers bar, and a large Sobe (dragonfruit)
I think that there is a conspiracy behind making mj illegal, because it can be grown at home and insudtry will not make so much money as drugs which have to be processed.
Every day here I'm reminded of reffer madness.
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