Marijuana gateway drug

Social factors such as peer pressure at school or work as well as family patterns of substance use can also contribute to the risk. Teenagers who respond to pressure to use gateway drugs such as alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana in their early teens are more likely to develop substance dependence disorders than those who refrain from doing so until their late teens. 

Gateway drug—Theory of drug enforcers who argue that even if Marijuana is not in the same class as certain narcotics, it should be treated the same way because it introduces people, especially the young, to those "harder" drugs. 

In my opinion, there is a gateway drug, but it is not marijuana. It is nicotine, most commonly delivered in the form of cigarettes. Young people who do not smoke have been found to be far less likely to try other drugs and not to become heavy users of alcohol than those who smoked (according to the 1998 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse). 

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, 1994. Cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana Gateways to illicit drug use. New York National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. 

Carpenter, Siri. The Changing Face of Marijuana Research. Monitor on Psychology, June 2001, pp. 40-42. Some people consider marijuana to be highly addictive and a gateway to harder drugs, while others believe it to be a social drug no more harmful than alcohol. Between these two positions lies the reality that marijuana affects individuals differently, as shown by variation in withdrawal symptoms. The identification of cannabis receptors in the brain has led to the realization that some marijuana users may be motivated to continue use in order to avoid withdrawal symptoms. However, about 40 percent of users seem not to experience drug dependence or withdrawal symptoms. Treatment plans need to take these different responses into account. 

However, a hypothesis published in the journal Science in 1997 provides strong support for the gateway theory. New findings, based on studies with rats, indicate that changes in the brain chemistry from marijuana are identical to changes in the brains of people who abuse heroin, nicotine, alcohol, and cocaine. These findings support the idea that chronic marijuana use may literally prime the brain for abuse of other drugs. 

Act included marijuana because people still feared it was the gateway to drugs like heroin and cocaine. 

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