cannabis a gateway drug? perhaps not

[snooch]

All too often we hear about cannabis being a "gateway" drug. All of us on here know that is in all probability bullshit, and this study, while not expansive, shows something completely different - and something that is currently buried in the social discussion about drugs and drug use. But it's something that needs expanding on. I also believe there needs to be more research into the amount of people who, from a young age, are prescribed pharma drugs like ritalin (or any arrange of anti-psyc's like prozac etc) who go on to become addicts of "illicit" drugs.

Drug addition is a sad reality in society and not something easily overcome. But the constant and overwhelming claims that cannabis use is the gateway to addiction needs to be taken in context imo

 

 

http://www.buffalo.edu/news/11652

 

Prescription painkillers now gateway drugs to hard drug use

Monday, August 30, 2010 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer

 

Shocking new research out of the University of Buffalo has revealed that popular prescription opioid medications are causing people to become addicted to street drugs. Once addicted, nearly half of patients prescribed opioid pain pills end up transitioning to street drugs like heroin because these drugs are generally cheaper and can be easier to obtain.

Of 75 patients hospitalized at Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo, New York, for detoxification, over 41 percent told their doctors that they became addicted to street drugs after being prescribed opioid medications -- like methadone, oxycodone and fentanyl -- by their doctors. Ninety-two percent of all patients in the program indicated that these prescription opioids actually led them to street drugs.

"This information suggests that there is a progressive nature to opioid use, and that prescription opioids can be the gateway to illicit drug addition," explained Richard Blondell, M.D., professor of family medicine and senior author of the study, in a press release.

The majority of patients in the detoxification program first began taking prescription opioids for pain following injuries or surgeries. In other words, the legitimate use of prescription drugs prescribed to patients by their doctors is a leading cause of substance abuse.

To make matters worse, most doctors fail to even ask patients if they have ever had a substance abuse problem prior to writing them an opioid prescription. So many doctors are directly responsible for helping to induce drug addiction through their neglect and carelessness in monitoring patients.

Additionally, a 2009 study found that the majority of patients who die from opioid overdoses did so due to prescription opioids anyway, indicating that even if patients do not transition to street drugs, their health is still at risk from legal opioids.

Edited September 1, 2010 by snooch

[Luke Skywalker]

Gateway hypothesis (it was never a scientific theory) is now and always has been rubbish science based more on ideology than reality.

[snooch]

Gateway hypothesis (it was never a scientific theory) is now and always has been rubbish science based more on ideology than reality.

 

 

No doubt Luke, and no argument on that fact from me.

 

But the cannabis gateway "theory" continues to be used as "fact" by powerful lobby groups like Drug Free Australia, Drug Free America and any other array of political, religious, police, mainstream media (Miranda Devine anyone???) group when, in fact, the real facts (ie. the growing and real threat of addiction from prescription drugs) is being lost. We've already seen how powerful lobby groups like Drug Free Australia can be by simply looking at the current Queensland Government inquiry into canna based on a candy-arsed paper of theirs.

 

No one seems to want to talk about the threat from opioids, because its legal and prescribed, but are all too willing to prescribe to the bullshit cannabis gateway theory because its an easy out.

Edited September 1, 2010 by snooch

[Buddy McBud]

the latest research.....

 

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/201...h-rom083110.php

 

Risk of marijuana's 'gateway effect' overblown, new UNH research shows

 

Public release date: 2-Sep-2010

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Contact: Karen Van Gundy

karen.vangundy@unh.edu

603-862-1896

University of New Hampshire

 

Risk of marijuana's 'gateway effect' overblown, new UNH research shows

 

DURHAM, N.H. – New research from the University of New Hampshire shows that the "gateway effect" of marijuana – that teenagers who use marijuana are more likely to move on to harder illicit drugs as young adults – is overblown.

 

Whether teenagers who smoked pot will use other illicit drugs as young adults has more to do with life factors such as employment status and stress, according to the new research. In fact, the strongest predictor of whether someone will use other illicit drugs is their race/ethnicity, not whether they ever used marijuana.

 

Conducted by UNH associate professors of sociology Karen Van Gundy and Cesar Rebellon, the research appears in the September 2010, issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior in the article, "A Life-course Perspective on the 'Gateway Hypothesis.' "

 

"In light of these findings, we urge U.S. drug control policymakers to consider stress and life-course approaches in their pursuit of solutions to the 'drug problem,' " Van Gundy and Rebellon say.

 

The researchers used survey data from 1,286 young adults who attended Miami-Dade public schools in the 1990s. Within the final sample, 26 percent of the respondents are African American, 44 percent are Hispanic, and 30 percent are non-Hispanic white.

 

The researchers found that young adults who did not graduate from high school or attend college were more likely to have used marijuana as teenagers and other illicit substances in young adulthood. In addition, those who used marijuana as teenagers and were unemployed following high school were more likely to use other illicit drugs.

 

However, the association between teenage marijuana use and other illicit drug abuse by young adults fades once stresses, such as unemployment, diminish.

 

"Employment in young adulthood can protect people by 'closing' the marijuana gateway, so over-criminalizing youth marijuana use might create more serious problems if it interferes with later employment opportunities," Van Gundy says.

 

In addition, once young adults reach age 21, the gateway effect subsides entirely.

 

"While marijuana use may serve as a gateway to other illicit drug use in adolescence, our results indicate that the effect may be short-lived, subsiding by age 21. Interestingly, age emerges as a protective status above and beyond the other life statuses and conditions considered here. We find that respondents 'age out' of marijuana's gateway effect regardless of early teen stress exposure or education, work, or family statuses," the researchers say.

 

The researchers found that the strongest predictor of other illicit drug use appears to be race-ethnicity, not prior use of marijuana. Non-Hispanic whites show the greatest odds of other illicit substance use, followed by Hispanics, and then by African Americans.

 

###

 

The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling more than 12,200 undergraduate and 2,200 graduate students.

 

The American Sociological Association (www.asanet.org), founded in 1905, is a nonprofit membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society. The Journal of Health and Social Behavior is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal of the ASA.

 

The research article described above is available by request for members of the media. Contact Daniel Fowler, ASA's Media Relations and Public Affairs Officer, at pubinfo@asanet.org or (202) 527-7885.

[Terry Wright]

Howdy all.

 

Thanks for the article Snooch.

 

Here's my take on the issue.

 

Gateway Theory Debunked … Again!

 

 

 

Regards

 

Terry

The Australian Heroin Diaries