Does using marijuana lead to harder drugs?
According to the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine’s 1999 report, Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base: “There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs … There is no evidence that marijuana serves as a stepping stone on the basis of its particular physiological effect … Instead, the legal status of marijuana makes it a gateway drug.” The World Health Organization noted that any gateway effect associated with marijuana use may actually be due to marijuana prohibition because “exposure to other drugs when purchasing cannabis on the black-market, increases the opportunity to use other illicit drugs.”
