Marijuana Is Gateway to Hard Drugs in Twins Study

ABC ^ | 1/21/03 | Reuters

[hoosierskypilot]

— CHICAGO (Reuters) - Teen-agers who smoked marijuana before turning 17 were more likely to use and abuse harder drugs and alcohol as young adults, a study of Australian twins released on Tuesday said.

The "gateway" hypothesis -- where the use of "soft" drugs can lead to a desire for "hard" drugs offering a more intense high -- appeared to be born out in the study of 311 sets of fraternal and identical twins. All the twins included one who had begun smoking marijuana before age 17 while the other had not.

The study found those who had smoked early in life were between two and five times more likely than their nonsmoking siblings to abuse alcohol or harder drugs such as cocaine and heroin when they reached their 20s or 30s.

Among the early marijuana users, 48 percent reported using cocaine and other stimulants as adults, 35 percent tried hallucinogens, and 14 percent used heroin and other opiates. Forty-six percent said they later abused or became dependent on marijuana, and 43 percent became alcohol dependent.

Among smokers before age 17, 48 percent abused or became dependent on an illicit drug, while 33 percent of the early nonsmokers became abusers later on in life.

But early marijuana use by no means guaranteed abuse of other drugs later on, said the authors of the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"I think one important thing to say to the parents of a 16-year-old using marijuana is that the majority of kids who use cannabis do not go on to experience problems with drugs or alcohol, but it's important that we, as parents and as a society, recognize that there is an increased risk," said Andrew Heath, a professor of psychiatry and director of the Missouri Alcoholism Research Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, who led the study.

"There is a fairly long history of research showing that early cannabis use is associated with increased risks for later use of so-called 'hard drugs,' but that research is based on the fact that most heroin and cocaine users report first having used cannabis," said study author Michael Lynskey of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Brisbane, Australia, a visiting psychiatry professor at Washington University.

"I think it often is implicitly assumed that the association between cannabis and other drugs is somehow pharmacological, that using cannabis changes your brain or makes you crave other drugs," Lynskey said. "But there are a number of other potential mechanisms, including access to drugs, willingness to break the law and likelihood of engaging in risk-taking behaviors."

In an accompanying editorial, Denise Kandel of Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, said the study's findings suggested anti-marijuana smoking programs targeting youth can avert later abuse of harder drugs.

"For youths who have already used marijuana, the issue is: can and should intervention programs be developed to target this group at very high risk for progressing to other substances? It appears so," she wrote.

[weikel]

5

[A CA Guy]

The thinking behind that was so callous that I believe it belonged to a teenager barely into puberty. Am I wrong?

Libertarians are disruptive to a true conservative view. They somehow want to re-define anarchy and vice as a staple of conservatism (in the name of a fabricated view of the constitution of course).

[Cultural Jihad]

Indeed, that mindset would also have to approve of fraud, just so long as it is committed against the gullible, or force, just so long as it is the strong oppressing the weak.

[A CA Guy]

Well wrap that up and smoke it I guess...LOL

[tpaine]

For the benefit of newbies and lurkers, the statist-fascist socialist cultists favor the WOD's, -- while real conservatives repudiate the constitutional violations this 'war' requires.

[BrooklynGOP]

But marijuana for sure is.

I bet every single person tried alcohol at least once before trying weed.

[A CA Guy]

"I think that all this study could really, seriously determine is that:
a person with a predilection for inhaling, ingesting or injecting intoxicating substances is willing to try what is available in the way of stronger substances ...

That and it also shows that:
Marijuana Is Gateway to Hard Drugs in particular.

The Libertarian mantra has been CRUSHED.

GAME, SET, MATCH..., I do expect states to take new looks at recently passed marijuana laws based on this. Only someone involved in drugs will still pursue the issue of legalization.
Being a gateway drug, it DOES harm others.

[Cultural Jihad]

I bet every single person tried alcohol at least once before trying weed.

You would have lost.

[A CA Guy]

Start a alcohol thread perhaps. Could be if your case is proven it could be added to pot as a gateway drug which harms others.

This will show the hypocrites libertarians all are as they continue to defend this as their no-harm mantra has been blown out of the water.

[Roscoe]

This couldn't be true! What about all the fanatics spamming FR claiming that dope is harmless?

[A CA Guy]

That number represents the Libertarians in Rhode Island, right? BUSTED!

[A CA Guy]

Those were folks doing drugs saying dopes were harmless. You misread ALL their threads. LOL

[Roscoe]

The Libertarian mantra has been CRUSHED.

You don't really think that they're gonna let themselves be bothered by facts, do you?

[jammer]

My point exactly.

[Cultural Jihad]

Only someone involved in drugs will still pursue the issue of legalization.

Perhaps so, Guy, but not across the board. I believe the majority of marijuana users are content with the current compromise arrangement of keeping it out of public sight, and thereby making it de facto legal.

[A CA Guy]

You stacked that one a mile high Tpaine.
Real Conservatives may debate the meaning of the Constitution, but it is evil to advocate illegal drugs use for or by anyone.

Only extreem left wing/wind Libertarians and DU Disrupters lurking at FR might be shaking their heads with what you say.

[GLDNGUN]

Don't be a dope. It should NOT be legal. Evidently you think all drugs should be legal so as many young people as possible will get hooked and won't re-produce. I'm trying to think of anything more inhumane, but I'm having trouble coming up with anything. Perhaps if I was in a pot-induced stupor it would all make sense.

[A CA Guy]

That's true, but the ones here at FR are really pushing it. The pro-drug activists here might be in fact working for cartels/suppliers or could be Democrats trying to be disruptors here at FR. That to is possible.

[A CA Guy]

Don't know about all other states, but in CA, it is only a ticket.

[GLDNGUN]

Amen. I couldn't have said it better myself, though I tried.