Posted on 07/21/2006 5:34:00 AM PDT by Wolfie
Gateway to Nowhere?
The evidence that pot doesn't lead to heroin.
Earlier this month, professor Yasmin Hurd of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine released a study showing that rats exposed to the main ingredient in marijuana during their adolescence showed a greater sensitivity to heroin as adults. The wire lit up with articles announcing confirmation for the "gateway theory"—the claim that marijuana use leads to harder drugs.
It's a theory that has long seemed to make intuitive sense, but remained unproven. The federal government's last National Survey on Drug Use and Health, conducted in 2004, counted about 97 million Americans who have tried marijuana, compared to 3 million who have tried heroin (166,000 had used it in the previous month). That's not much of a rush through the gateway. And a number of studies have demonstrated that your chances of becoming an addict are higher if addiction runs in your family, or if heroin is readily available in your community, or if you're a risk-taker. These factors can account for the total number of heroin addicts, which could make the gateway theory superfluous.
On close inspection, Hurd's research, published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, doesn't show otherwise. For the most part, it's a blow to the gateway theory. To be sure, Hurd found that rats who got high on pot as adolescents used more heroin once they were addicted. But she found no evidence that they were more likely to become addicted than the rats in the control group who'd never been exposed to delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, marijuana's main ingredient.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
I've never seen it stated that way.
But it just makes sense that if a certain percentage of people who use Substance A go on to try Substance B, reducing the number of people who use Substance A would result in fewer people going on to try Substance B.
(Granted, there are people who are using Substances X or Y or Z (or no substances) that go on to try Substance B, but that's not the subject of this article.)
Maybe there is more profit, maybe not--but I bet there is more risk (harsher penalties if caught dealing) and less market. Also may be more competition as their is a higher profit and again more risk from other dealers (who may resort to violence to protect higher profit)
Personally--I think it would be easier to be a pot dealer than harder drugs-your target market is a little more subdued, less likely to kill you.
Both heroin and cocaine have to be imported from great distances at some danger, and then processed with purchased chemicals and equipment, which also drives up production costs.
It is more profitable to sell a substance that is practically free to produce and that does not have to be processed than it is to sell a substance that costs something to import from other sources and then refine. So perhaps marijuana, even assuming that a bag sells for less than a bag of cocaine or heroin, is still more profitable.
It's a specious argument, but doesn't stand up to critical analysis. If whatever is making the person inherently inclined to use Substance A also inclined to use Substance B, the presence or absence of Substance A isn't going to make any difference.
The same? Or similar? Do the same percentage of alcohol users go on to try heroin as pot smokers? Seems to me the legality factor works against that.
But, for sake of argument, let's assume they're the same. Why do you wish to legalize a recreational drug that you concede leads to heroin use? Are you crazy?
I wouldn't know, as I'm not a drug dealer. You're the one who made the claim.But I remember reading that the price of a standard bag of heroin is extremely low---something on the order of $10. So I don't think it's a given that coke selling or heroin selling is more profitable than weed selling. There's a hell of a lot more risk, too, in selling heroin or coke---financial and legal. You have to import your heroin and coke, but weed . . . any schlub can grow weed.
The "gateway theory" is an exercise in absolutes. If there's any connection at all, then there's a positive "gateway effect". If you're suggesting there there should be some consideration of actual consideration of the percentages involved, then that's new. What is the "legality factor"? Are you suggesting that the legality of alcohol somehow mitigates it's "gateway effect"?
But, for sake of argument, let's assume they're the same. Why do you wish to legalize a recreational drug that you concede leads to heroin use? Are you crazy?
I haven't said anything about legalizing pot. Try to stay on topic, please.
Quit trying to confuse the failed war on some drug zealots with facts. They don't speak logic. Emotion based arguments are preferable.
Obviously small. Does that surprise you? Do you think it's fair to compare the usage of those two drugs? Do you deem them equivalent?
Apples and oranges.
I'd like to know the percentage of heroin users who once smoked pot. That's an indication of where they get their numbers from. If the majority of them used to smoke pot, and we can reduce the number of pot smokers, seems to me that we'd reduce the number of future addicts, yes?
"Or do they learn to drive at the same rate as the rest of the population? I don't know. But I cannot assume the causation."
You're saying that you require a scientific study with absolute, incontrovertible proof that there's no connection between bicycle riding and car driving before you're willing to have an opinion on it?
Ohio crack task force web site
Cocaine sells for approximately $20-$25,000 per kilo in our area, and then sold on the street for about $100 per gram, creating a 400-500% profit margin. These kinds of profits continue to make cocaine trafficking a profitable venture.DEA drug trafficing web site
Prices for commercial-grade marijuana have remained relatively stable over the past decade, ranging from approximately $400 to $1,000 per pound in U.S. Southwest border areas to between $700 to $2000 per pound in the Midwest and northeastern United States. The national price range for sinsemilla, a higher quality marijuana usually grown domestically, is between $900 and $6,000 per pound. BC Bud sells for between $1,500 and $2,000 per pound in Vancouver; but when smuggled into the United States, it sells for between $5,000 and $8,000 per pound in major metropolitan areas.
And yet this study was trumpeted as proof of the gateway theory. It proved no such thing, as the heretofore un-reported details show.
Thanks for the info. I think it's logical to assume that a drug dealer who traffics in all sorts of drugs might want to amp his or her customers up into a more lucrative product . . . but that assumes that all drug dealers deal all drugs, too, which (at least in my limited experience) isn't necessarily the case.
The real story is that the MSM lied about the study results, or were fed lies. No other story I've seen reported the true result - that there was NO difference in the rate of addiction between the two groups of rats. Some stories even falsely reported that there was.
Gateway to nowhere is about right.
Oh, I hear you, my friend. Same old story.
You're certainly right on that point. Having lived at various times in the Santa Cruz mountains and in Oakland, CA, I've run into them ranging from the grow-it-at-home-and-only-for-friends casual marijuana "dealer" to the anything-you-want-for-a-profit full-time professional drug pusher.
I smoked dope between december of 1972 and July of 1977. Haven't touched it since. It never led to anything else, any moe than alcohol leads to pot, etc. I've always thought the "gateway drug" thing was right up there with other claims of Reefer Madness.
I consider dope more benign than alcohol. 'Cept it's illegal. What's up with that?!
There are ways I can argue with that, but I know what you're trying to say and I agree.
"I guess what I'd say is that all this boils down to is that someone who does drugs is more likely to do drugs."
Yes. And IMO, someone who does one illegal drug is more likely to do another illegal drug (as opposed to a wine drinker going on to cocaine).
"It's like saying high school football players are more likely to play basketball than science club geeks."
True. But I prefer the analogy of "high school football players are more likely to play hardcore professional football than science club geeks". But that doesn't mean all high school football players go on to professional football. Actually, very few do. But it's more likely that someone from that group would.
It just makes sense to me that if we reduce the number of people who smoke marijuana, we reduce the number of people who move on to other drugs. Reduce. Not eliminate. But still a laudable goal.
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