Is cannabis a gateway drug?
Tom O’Connell, M.D. (O’Shaughnessy’s, Autumn 2005, pg. 8), reported on an ongoing study he is conducting using applicants for medical cannabis recommendations under Proposition 215. Dr. O’Connell concluded that results so far cast “…great doubt on the validity of any ‘gateway’ role for cannabis. It supports the opposite interpretation: teens who begin self-medicating with cannabis at an early age may be protected against problematic use of other agents – not only against tobacco and alcohol, but against heroin and other illegal drugs.” In their March 1999 report the Institute of Medicine (IOM) found no evidence that cannabis use was a risk factor for progression to use of other substances. They called the gateway theory a “social theory” and added, “Instead, it is the legal status of marijuana that makes it a gateway drug. ” (And remember, prior to prohibition in 1937, cannabis was widely prescribed by American physicians to all ages without harm.
Office of Public Policy and Ethics, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld, 4072, Australia. w.hall@imb.uq.edu.au We outline and evaluate competing explanations of three relationships that have consistently been found between cannabis use and the use of other illicit drugs, namely, (1) that cannabis use typically precedes the use of other illicit drugs; and that (2) the earlier cannabis is used, and (3) the more regularly it is used, the more likely a young person is to use other illicit drugs. We consider three major competing explanations of these patterns: (1) that the relationship is due to the fact that there is a shared illicit market for cannabis and other drugs which makes it more likely that other illicit drugs will be used if cannabis is used; (2) that they are explained by the characteristics of those who use cannabis; and (3) that they reflect a causal relationship in which the pharmacological effects of cannabis on brain function increa
We outline and evaluate competing explanations of three relationships that have consistently been found between cannabis use and the use of other illicit drugs, namely, (1) that cannabis use typically precedes the use of other illicit drugs; and that (2) the earlier cannabis is used, and (3) the more regularly it is used, the more likely a young person is to use other illicit drugs. We consider three major competing explanations of these patterns: (1) that the relationship is due to the fact that there is a shared illicit market for cannabis and other drugs which makes it more likely that other illicit drugs will be used if cannabis is used; (2) that they are explained by the characteristics of those who use cannabis; and (3) that they reflect a causal relationship in which the pharmacological effects of cannabis on brain function increase the likelihood of using other illicit drugs. These explanations are evaluated in the light of evidence from longitudinal epidemiological studies, si
You may have heard the term “gateway drug” with reference to cannabis. It is the idea that cannabis use opens the door to other drugs. The basis of this is that it can be shown that most people who end up using hard drugs like heroin have, at some earlier point in their lives, also taken cannabis. This is an absurd argument, of course, since it can also be shown that most heroin users have also previously drunk tea, gone shopping or watched Deal Or No Deal on daytime TV. Should we make Noel Edmonds illegal then? Does daytime TV drive you to heroin? I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Of course the only real similarity between cannabis and heroin is the fact that they are both illegal and therefore available from the same source. In other words it is precisely the status of the two drugs as illegal substances that is most likely to cause an escalation from one to the other. Heroin addicts often fund their addiction by dealing in other drugs. Plus when people find out that they are not insta
So just what does cannabis do? How does it make you feel? That sounds like an easy question, in truth it’s anything but. This first thing to know is that cannabis comes in many different varieties, which all have different versions of the same effect, versions which can be almost poles apart in some respects. Unlike almost every other recreational substance, cannabis is not a single drug, what it does is down to the combined effect of several active chemicals (drugs) and different strains of the plant have different ratios of these active chemicals. Because of this, some types of cannabis are laid back and dreamy, others are edgy and very “uppy”. Cannabis is classed as a mild psychedelic, a mild version of the type of drugs which include LSD. This is possibly misleading as it’s nothing like LSD, cannabis doesn’t produce full on hallucinations, although it can alter your perception of the world around you. You may notice things you never noticed before, find deep complex patterns in thi
