The recreational use of marijuana has been glamorized over the years by such on-screen duos as Cheech & Chong and Harold & Kumar, but is the drug everything that Hollywood makes it out to be? Then again, are we being hypocritical by allowing alcohol consumption but not cannabis usage? With passionate believers on both sides of the argument, it will be interesting to see what happens when the smoke clears.
The “gateway” theory suggests that marijuana use inevitably leads to the use of harder drugs, such as cocaine and heroin. By contrast, epidemiological data reported by the US federal government and others indicate that cannabis is not a significant predictor of later hard drug use.[1-2] Most recently, investigators at the University of Pittsburgh, School of Pharmacy, tracked the drug use patterns of 214 boys, beginning at ages 10 to 12, for a period of twelve years. All of the subjects eventually used either legal or illegal drugs. Researchers found that adolescents who used marijuana prior to using other drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, were no more likely to develop a substance abuse disorder than other subjects in the study.[3]
The “gateway” theory is further rebutted by population surveys which consistently show that the overwhelming majority of marijuana users never use any illicit substance other than cannabis.[4-5] Furthermore, those populations who report using marijuana in early adulthood typically report voluntarily ceasing their cannabis use by age 30.[6-8] Consequently, for most cannabis consumers, marijuana is a 'terminus' rather than a ‘gateway.’
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