Marijuanna as a Gateway Drug - Research Paper Example

Marijuana as a Gateway Drug Introduction Marijuana has long been a topic for debate in the United States and all around the world. Policymakers have spent great deal of time and energy while debating about legalization, harmful effects, and classification of marijuana over the years. Despite years of debating and being in the limelight of nationwide discussions, various aspects of marijuana are still more like a mystery or legend waiting to be explored. This paper will try to shed some light on the debate regarding “marijuana being a gateway drug” and it will try to argue against this argument. Discussion In a report presented by the National Institute on Drug Abuse concludes that any person smoking marijuana is 104 times more likely to use cocaine as compared to any other person that has never tried marijuana. In fact, one commonly come across stories about drug addicts who start their stories with marijuana and then end up trying every drug known to humankind (Iversen, 2001). There are no doubts in the fact that there is strong correlation between the use of marijuana and use of other drugs; however, this correlation does not represent causation. In other words, the statement that use of marijuana leads to other drugs is incorrect because scientists and researchers of “National Institute of Medical Marijuana discarded this idea as far back in 1999” (Earleywine, 2002). The researchers concluded that the patterns of drug use amongst the lifetime of people share striking similarities and use the marijuana precedes the use of many other drugs but that is primarily because of the fact marijuana is the most widely available illicit drug. In fact, these patterns also indicate that even before using marijuana these people use nicotine and alcohol usually long before they of the legal age to do the same (Hanson, Venturelli & Fleckenstein, 2011). In that way, alcohol and nicotine would have to be labeled as gateway drugs but the same is not true because these drugs or their effects have failed to show elements or tendencies of attracting people to other drugs (Kleiman, Caulkins & Hawken, 2011). Every year the federal government conducts two huge surveys in order to explore the changing trends of drug use in the population. Over the past decade, year after year, the number of people who tried marijuana has been greater than that of people who have tried cocaine and heroin. In the year 2009, over 2.3 million tried marijuana and the same number of heroin and cocaine remained at 0.18 and 0.6 million respectively. If marijuana was such a strong gateway drug then this should have increased the number of cocaine and heroin consumers as well (Kleiman, Caulkins & Hawken, 2011). One possible explanation of marijuana leading to other drugs could be understood by the example of music. A person who likes music, or listens to a genre of music for the first time and likes it, is likely to look for new bands and singers in that genre. This is because people have the general tendency to look for change and new ways to impress themselves. Sticking to one song, band, or genre is most likely to feel boring within a short time. The same is true for marijuana. When marijuana starts appealing to certain people, they like to diversify their taste and look for new drugs, which could give them the same or even better feeling (Hanson, Venturelli & Fleckenstein, 2011). Another reason behind the correlation of marijuana and other drugs relates to the supply chain of these drugs. You can only find a heroin dealer if you have an expert consumer of weed. Heroin and cocaine dealers face greater penalties and their limited supply makes it hard for the suppliers of these hard drugs to trust customers easily. The ground reality is that finding a heroin or cocaine dealer directly is difficult and even if one finds the dealer, it is extremely difficult to make the dealer trust you and get a reasonable price from them (Kleiman, Caulkins & Hawken, 2011). However, the process becomes much easier if you have the support and backing of your regular marijuana dealer. Proponents of the argument that marijuana is indeed a gateway drug present the argument that sensation and feeling of marijuana dies after a certain period for its users. As marijuana users get used to the drug, they look for harder drugs since their mind is numb to marijuana and needs harder drugs for users to feel the sensation of those drugs. Nevertheless, these arguments and ideas may be the popular beliefs but they have the two major problems that have been discussed earlier in the paper as well. First, they may depict correlation but they fail to manifest any causation, which is prime prerequisite for considering marijuana as a gateway drug (Earleywine, 2002). Furthermore, there is a long list of studies, which have concluded that labeling marijuana, as a gateway is incorrect and this popular belief if just a myth and lacks scientific evidence. Research and Development, also known as RAND Corporation, conducted a comprehensive research that also appeared in the British Journal of Addiction, by using a mathematical model of drug use in adults and adolescents in United States and United Kingdom. The research found out that patterns that emerged did not justify the gateway effect theory and in fact, there was evidence that it may be the other way around (Earleywine, 2002). In an attempt to explore the physiological effects of marijuana and its possible contribution of leading towards other drugs, “the Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Health at the Institute of Medicine in the year 1999 conducted a research which published with the title of Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base" (Kleiman, Caulkins & Hawken, 2011). The research could not found any causation between use of marijuana and use of harder drugs. One of the most noted and reputed research in this regard was of American Psychiatric Association that published in the American Journal of Psychiatry. It was a 12-year research conducted with on 214 boys between the ages of 10-12 when the research started and they were 22-24 when the research ended. The research concluded that “The gateway progression may be the most common pattern, but it’s certainly not the only order of drug use; in fact, the reverse pattern is just as accurate for predicting who might be at risk for developing a drug dependence disorder” (Hanson, Venturelli & Fleckenstein, 2011). Conclusion Once again, there are no doubts in the fact that use of marijuana and use of harder drugs have a strong correlation and that is not only in United States but in many other parts of the world as well, however, this correlation is different from causation, something which is essential to classify marijuana as a gateway drug. Despite the fact that marijuana being a gateway drug is the traditional belief but there is no strong scientific evidence to validate this publicly held belief (Kleiman, Caulkins, & Hawken, 2011). References Earleywine, M. (2002). Understanding marijuana: a new look at the scientific evidence. Oxford University Press. Hanson, G. R., Venturelli, P. J., & Fleckenstein, A. E. (2011). Drugs and Society. Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Iversen, L. L. (2001). The science of marijuana. Oxford University Press. Kleiman, M. A. R., Caulkins, M. A. R., & Hawken, A. (2011). Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford University Press. Read More