Marijuana: The Gateway Drug

In 2006 a study conducted by researchers at University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry showed that Marijuana was in fact NOT a gateway drug. The study considered the results of 214 boys over the course of 12 years. They tried to prove that early adolescent use of Marijuana would lead to an increased likelihood that they would later use other substances. The study found that correlations were not any more common than if Alcohol or Cigarettes were used at an early age.

In my opinion -- as a user who has been on both the legal and recreational side of marijuana use -- it is not that Marijuana will make you want to try other drugs but that smoking pot can often make it easier to come into contact with other, more dangerous substances. For example, people without a medical reason to use Marijuana will often turn to their "neighborhood pharmacist" these shady members of the community will often have other, more addictive and expensive, substances for sale that they may want to encourage customers to buy. So in this sense pot can be looked upon as being a gateway drug, but much like this study shows it is due to environmental and social pressures instead of caused by the pot itself. But if Marijuana were legal people could go to a store were their sale would be regulated and their would be no shady "pharmacists" pushing their other products on you.




http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/study-say-marijuana-no-gateway-drug-12116.html