Researcher's Study of Twins Bolsters 'Gateway Theory' (For Early Marijuana Use)

Medscape ^ | 2003 | Brown University Behavior Letter

[shrinkermd]

Many studies have examined the "gateway" theory, that marijuana use at a young age leads to use of harder drugs as a person grows older. While there is a general consensus among studies that those who use marijuana are much more likely to use hard drugs and that hard drug users usually use marijuana first, there is lively debate surrounding the reasons for these dynamics.

[shrinkermd]

FYI

[xrp]

Users of marijuana before the age of 17

Users of marijuana before the age of 17 should be put into serious bootcamp rehab. After age 17, they're adults, they should be allowed to do what they want, on their own property, as long as they don't violate the rights of others.

[presidio9]

Say old chum, have you heard that none other than Ozzie Osborn himself says that pot smoking led his son Jack to try harder drugs?

[Lexington Green]

Beer

[thoughtomator]

More active imaginations in the psycho community bought and paid for by the WoD department. Of course those who use MJ are more likely to use other drugs than those that don't; they are farther along on the path of realization that their government and schools have been lying to them all along, and are trying to discover the truth for themselves.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

Oh dear me, please don't tell me that a man who has used drugs himself, and therefore might know of what he speaks, says that: the use of pot led his son Jack, to be a user of heavy more addictive drugs.

Say it ain't so......

[CO_dreamer]

#1, what the hell is RAND doing research like that for?
#2, what percentage of first time pot-smokers used alcohol or tobacco before the first smoked pot?

And as a followup to #2, why aren't alcohol and cigarettes considered as 'gateway drugs' to marijuana?

[presidio9]

The fundamental flaw in the logic of potheads is that they confuse psychology with true science. When they constantly demand proof of a causal relationship, they neglect the fact that human nature is not quantifiable like a chemistry experiment. The so-called "gateway theory" is nothing more than common sense.

[presidio9]

Are we conservatives, or are we Republicans

You are neither.

[GovernmentShrinker]

The studies on early alcohol use show a massive correlation between age at onset of use and lifelong alocholism. I expect if they ran the alcohol studies on twins, they'd confirm it's a causative factor as well.

The simple fact is that the years from adolescence through early adulthood are the primary period of learning emotional coping skills. Those who begin using mind-altering substances during this period, to deal with stress, anxiety, depression, etc., are cheating their way out of the difficult process of learning emotional coping skills, i.e. they aren't using the mind-altering substances in addition to all the normal developmental processes of adolesecence and early adulthood, they're using them INSTEAD of a key one of those processes. In addition, their substance abuse generally ensures that they fall in with a peer group which is also skipping the normal process of emotional development. They then arrive at the greater stresses of adulthood without those skills and, as much neurological research has shown, with much less malleable brains than younger people -- for those reasons, it's extremely difficult to catch up on learning the coping skills past college age.

Too bad our society isn't ready to face the fact that alcohol is a major "gateway" drug too -- and probably a much bigger one than marijuana.

[presidio9]

Say it ain't so......

I'm afraid it is. Be forwarned: Pretty soon you will have a bunch of paranoid reefer addicts on this thread telling you that the only way to combat alcoholism is to legalize pot.

[Atlas Sneezed]

"Users of marijuana before the age of 17 should be put into serious bootcamp rehab."

Feel the same about minors caught drinking beer?

[AxelPaulsenJr]

Yeah and then you will have the anti-wodders saying that Ozzy Osborne can't be believed because he fried his brains on the very same drugs that they want to legalize.

[presidio9]

Too bad our society isn't ready to face the fact that alcohol is a major "gateway" drug too

But only because it is much more readily available. Thank God pot is illegal or we would have a much bigger problem.

[f.Christian]

trying to discover the truth for themselves.

thoughtomator ... sounds like you have you the patent - have combined pot and tomatos --- in your head !

[MEGoody]

"and are trying to discover the truth for themselves."

And it's easy to find truth while high on drugs?

[thoughtomator]

Au contraire, I am simply too conservative to be brainwashed into letting the WoD destroy our Constitutional republic. If you buy into the WoD Big Lie, then it is your conservatism that is in question, not mine.

[thoughtomator]

And it's easy to find truth while high on drugs?

As opposed to finding the truth in NEA-dominated government propaganda centers (a.k.a. public schools)? Not even a close call IMO.

[thoughtomator]

This coming from a guy who is still confused about evolution? Qwik Qwiz - Earth: Flat or round?

[f.Christian]

You might want to go over to the ... looney bin --- your side needs help !