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Study Finds Alcohol, Not Marijuana, Is the Biggest Gateway Drug For Teens
An anonymous reader writes with news of a study out of the University of Florida which found that alcohol is the biggest "gateway" drug, the use of which increases the likelihood of other drug use. Quoting:
"In the sample of students, alcohol also represented the most commonly used substance, with 72.2 percent of students reporting alcohol consumption at some point in their lifetime. Comparatively, 45 percent of students reported using tobacco, and 43.3 percent cited marijuana use. In addition, the drug use documented found that substance use typically begins with the most socially acceptable drugs, such as alcohol and cigarettes, then proceeds to marijuana use and finally to other illegal, harder drugs. Moreover, the study showed that students who used alcohol exhibited a significantly greater likelihood — up to 16 times — of licit and illicit substance use."
Even so, to label something a "gateway drug", you'll have to show a causal relationship, or at least examine the correlation under different conditions.
Case in point: in my home country of the Netherlands, marihuana is (semi-)legal and freely available. Guess what: while there are more people in the Netherlands who have at some point tried marihuana (per capita), the number of regular users is actually lower than in the USA. Furthermore, we do not have a significantly higher number of users of hard drugs either. Which makes sense: the American pushing pot is breaking the law at the risk of a stiff prison sentence. He'll be more likely to cheerfully sell you something more potent as well. In the Netherlands, licensed coffee shop proprietors enjoy a legal and profitable trade in soft drugs; they are unlikely to risk all that by selling hard drugs on the side (besides, they are checked on a regular basis).
It's not the drug itsef that's the gateway to the nastier stuff. It's the person that is selling it to you. Legalising soft drugs doesn't mean allowing a gateway drug into the hands of your youngsters, it means that you're controlling the gateway and making it less likely that kids come into contact with hard drugs.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
If you follow the money very far you'll find that the banking industry is one of the most opposed to rationalizing drug laws, and it's not hard to figure out why. Money laundering, a.k.a. "private banking" is one of the most lucrative sectors of the financial services industry, with fees averaging 10-15 percent for mostly automated transactions. The US is the world's largest money laundry, with over $1,000,000,000,000 (yeah, a trillion dollars) being laundered here every year, about half of it being related to drugs and the rest to frauds, tax cheats, weapons, etc. How happy would the financial services industry be with their pet congresscritters if $50-$75 billion in almost pure profit were to evaporate? It's so lucrative that Clinton's Treasury Secretary went directly from "public service" to running the private banking branch of CitiCorp, one of the world's biggest money launderers, where he engineered the takeover of BanaMex (a.k.a. 'the drug smuggler's bank of choice') and its extremely valuable customer list.
I highly recommend Catherine Austin Fitts's three-part series called "NarcoDollars for Beginners" found on the Narconews.com web site (it's also mirrored all over, without permission, as "NarcoDollars for Dummies").
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
It can trigger psychotic episodes in mentally ill people.
Being a daily user of over 10 years (both illegally and now legally) and having suffered a triggered psychotic episode, the problem is certain people like myself can be very sensitive to high THC levels. Many grower-bred strains, particularly Sativas, are bred for high THC levels as it's an active, energetic high and can be very pleasant. However, under the right conditions and a vulnerable individual, it can cause severe anxiety, racing thoughts (exacerbated even by paranoia of doing something illegal) and even outright delusions. Another substance in marijuana is CBD, which has the opposite effect, and is more prevalent in Indicas. Research has actually shown it to act as an antipsychotic, neuroprotectant, inhibit tumor growth in both brain and lung cancers, and generally makes you feel sleepy and sedated. On the street, you generally never know the levels in what you are getting, and even at some dispensaries, unless you know the strain and the of THC and CBD of that family. If you get a THC dominant strain and a vulnerable individual uses it, yes, it can trigger a psychotic episode. That said, now that I have access to safe, reliable and professionally grown marijuana where I know exactly the contents of strains, I can choose carefully and it has worked wonders for my chronic pain and anxiety.