Is marijuana a gateway drug to harder, more addictive drugs?
This has always been a highly controversial topic. I don’t know of any evidence that one particular drug will actually cause an individual to use another specific drug later on. What I think happens is that individuals start taking drugs because of availability, so whatever’s available – glue, alcohol, tobacco, marijuana – will do. In that sense, all these drugs are ‘gateway’ drugs, and for some individuals, they’re an entree into drug abuse. Q: How difficult is it to produce a derivative of THC that can deliver analgesic benefits without all the other effects? A: One of the fascinating things about THC is that it has so many effects on the brain. Those receptors that we talked about are present throughout the brain. So THC is involved in a lot of different systems which is exciting for us in the context of controlling movement disorders and as an analgesia. THC is a very good analgesic in animal models (in humans, in clinical trials, this analgesic activity is weaker.) A lot of our cu
