cannabisnews.com: RAND: Marijuana No Gateway to Cocaine and Heroin





RAND: Marijuana No Gateway to Cocaine and Heroin
Posted by CN Staff on December 02, 2002 at 12:39:53 PT
News Release
Source: RAND Corporation
A new study by the RAND Drug Policy Research Center casts doubt on claims that marijuana acts as a "gateway" to the use of cocaine and heroin, challenging an assumption that has guided U.S. drug policies since the 1950s. However, the study does not argue that marijuana should be legalized or decriminalized.The theory that the use of marijuana by young people causes some to graduate to harder drugs, often called the "gateway effect," has been used most recently to counter efforts to relax marijuana laws in several states. Earlier it was used to justify the imposition of tough penalties against the possession of even small amounts of marijuana.
Evidence supporting claims of marijuana's gateway effects has been found in many epidemiological studies of adolescent drug use. For instance, these studies found that marijuana users are up to 85 times more likely to use hard drugs than those who do not use marijuana, and few hard drug users do not use marijuana first. "We've shown that the marijuana gateway effect is not the best explanation for the link between marijuana use and the use of harder drugs," said Andrew Morral, associate director of RAND's Public Safety and Justice unit and lead author of the study. "An alternative, simpler and more compelling explanation accounts for the pattern of drug use you see in this country, without resort to any gateway effects. While the gateway theory has enjoyed popular acceptance, scientists have always had their doubts. Our study shows that these doubts are justified."The study demonstrates that associations between marijuana and hard drug use could be expected even if marijuana use has no gateway effect. Instead, the associations can result from known differences in the ages at which youths have opportunities to use marijuana and hard drugs, and known variations in individuals' willingness to try any drugs, researchers found. The RAND study and a series of commentaries about the report are published in the December edition of the British journal Addiction, a peer-reviewed scientific publication."The people who are predisposed to use drugs and have the opportunity to use drugs are more likely than others to use both marijuana and harder drugs," Morral said. "Marijuana typically comes first because it is more available. Once we incorporated these facts into our mathematical model of adolescent drug use, we could explain all of the drug use associations that have been cited as evidence of marijuana's gateway effect.""This is a very important study with broad implications for marijuana control policy," said Charles R. Schuster, a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and now director of the Addiction Research Institute at Wayne State University. "I can only hope that it will be read with objectivity and evaluated on its scientific merits, not reflexively rejected because it violates most policy makers' beliefs."RAND researchers say it is unlikely that any study will be conducted that definitively settles the marijuana gateway debate. But the authors say their study should raise questions about the legitimacy of basing national drug policy decisions on the assumption that one of the harmful effects of marijuana use is the increased risk of using more dangerous drugs."If our model is right, it has significant policy implications," Morral said. "For example, it suggests that policies aimed at reducing or eliminating marijuana availability are unlikely to make any dent in the hard drug problem. When enforcement resources that could have been used against heroin and cocaine are instead used against marijuana, this could have the unintended effect of worsening heroin and cocaine use."However, the study does not conclude that marijuana should be legalized or decriminalized. "Even without the effects of a marijuana gateway, relaxing marijuana prohibitions could affect the incidence of hard drug use by diminishing the stigma of drug use generally, thereby increasing adolescents' willingness to try hard drugs," Morral said. "Moreover, marijuana itself can be a serious problem for those who become dependent on it."Other authors of the report are Daniel McCaffery and Susan Paddock of RAND's Drug Policy Research Center, a joint program of RAND's Public Safety and Justice Program and RAND Health.RAND researchers tested the marijuana gateway theory by creating a mathematical model simulating adolescent drug use. Rates of marijuana and hard drug use in the model matched those observed in survey data collected from representative samples of youths from across the United States. Without assuming any gateway effect, the model produced patterns of drug use and abuse remarkably similar to what is experienced across the nation, showing that a marijuana gateway effect is not needed to explain the observed behavior.The black market in marijuana in the United States is estimated at $10 billion per year, and more than 700,000 people are arrested on marijuana charges each year. Some states have passed laws easing penalties for marijuana use. Voters in several states rejected ballot propositions in November that would have approved similar changes.A series of commentaries by other addiction researchers that accompany the RAND study discuss some of the implications of the research and whether there is any way to create a study to unequivocally answer the marijuana gateway question.RAND has four principal locations, Santa Monica, California; Arlington, Virginia (just outside Washington, D.C.); Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and RAND Europe headquarters in Leiden, The Netherlands. RAND Europe also has offices in Berlin, Germany, and Cambridge, the United Kingdom. RAND's other offices in the United States include Council for Aid to Education in New York City and several smaller sites.RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. Complete Title: RAND Study Casts Doubt on Claims That Marijuana Acts as "Gateway" to the Use of Cocaine and HeroinSource: RAND CorporationPublished: Monday, December 02, 2002 Copyright: RAND 1994-2002 Website: http://www.rand.org Contact: http://www.rand.org/contact/keycontacts.htmlRelated Articles:Study Finds No Cannabis Link To Hard Drugs http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11595.shtmlCannabis Use Does Not Lead To Heroin http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10193.shtml
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Comment #6 posted by kaptinemo on December 03, 2002 at 12:29:12 PT:
Note some things? 
Namely the timing (after the recent whirlwind tours of the top DrugWarriors to western States considering loosening canabis prohibition) and and the location of where this study is receiving publicity...and where it's NOT.First, the timing: rather odd that this GOVERNMENT FUNDED STUDY, which denigrates the recent bull fed the voters by our DrugWarriors, comes out AFTER the election cycle. AFTER. Now why is that? Can it be, perhaps, that they didn't want this information (which shoots holes the size of freight trains through their rationale of 'gateway theory') to become public knowledge BEFORE their lies were able to deceive the public and achieve their desired result?Secondly, why is it we are not hearing very much from our own news media about this? Why is it we are hearing about this in a British publication? A publication that is written by and for addiction specialists? Why not some larger, domestic outlet? As usual, with nearly all of the reports that go against the grain of officialdom of late, the story has practically been 'spiked' in the US. Editorially deep-sixed. Anyone still harboring doubts as to (neo)conservative bias in the media serving the Elite of this country, you need doubt no longer: a free media beholden to principles of publishing the truth would be waving this in the faces of the UnHoly Trio of Ashcroft, Walters, and Hutchinson and demanding answers for the evident falsehoods they told to get voters to decide against things like the Nevada proposals. Instead, we have...silence. Soccer Mommies and Daddy Portfolios, too lazy to think for themselves, trusted these liars and voted as they were told. How many did so solely on the basis of the oft-blatted and oft-discredited 'gateway theory'? We'll never know. But the facts have always been out there for anyone with enough simple curiosity if not intellectual honesty to peruse. Unfortunately, as John Foster Dulles once gloated when he saddled us with the beginnings of fascism with the 1947 National Security Act, "Fortunately for us the American people don't read."Maybe someday they'll begin to read...but the way things are going, they will likely be limited by their choices in reading material to the scribblings of former inmates of their present cell. For violating some arcane and obscure national security regulation whose existence they were completely oblivious to. Because they were too lazy to be vigilant when well-dressed, government-salaried thieves came for their rights. Because they trusted the government to do their thinking for them.I. F. Stone said it so long ago, and it still merits repeating: "All governments are run by liars and no one should believe a word they say."
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Comment #5 posted by The GCW on December 02, 2002 at 14:44:36 PT
The gateway theory to come down off hard drugs...
is still not mentioned. Cannabis has helped D.C. get off crack, or so I've read. It has helped others get off meth etc...When citizens are allowed more or less to use cannabis, they use hard drugs less. When society makes cannabis extra hard to get, then people use hard drugs more.The gate swings both ways.The Fed. Gov. bull is discredited once again, and I accept that the gate does not swing in that direction.But the other swing in the gate is still credible. It is a gateway herb down.Thank Our Father The Ecologician.Can You imagine the boogers running around with those cups of urine and the gate comes back at them, and ooops.
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Comment #4 posted by Ethan Russo MD on December 02, 2002 at 14:03:10 PT:
Truth
In my more cynical moments, I have been known to say, "The truth doesn't matter, it is the semblance of truth you can create." Nowhere does this apply better than to the federal government and our legal system.
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Comment #3 posted by MikeEEEEE on December 02, 2002 at 14:01:01 PT
America, you've been lied to
But I think they'll still spin the gateway theory. Some of the old tricks are the best tricks.
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Comment #2 posted by delariand on December 02, 2002 at 13:12:35 PT
...
"This is a very important study with broad implications for marijuana control policy," said Charles R. Schuster, a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and now director of the Addiction Research Institute at Wayne State University. "I can only hope that it will be read with objectivity and evaluated on its scientific merits, not reflexively rejected because it violates most policy makers' beliefs."Yes, yes that's true. Since we're currently under the thumb of an entirely Republican government, hope is all you can do, because your study is going to be dismissed as so much hippie crap. 
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Comment #1 posted by aocp on December 02, 2002 at 13:08:17 PT
i've a simpler explanation
'The study demonstrates that associations between marijuana and hard drug use could be expected even if marijuana use has no gateway effect. Instead, the associations can result from known differences in the ages at which youths have opportunities to use marijuana and hard drugs, and known variations in individuals' willingness to try any drugs, researchers found.'Or, could it be that both are sold on the unregulated black market and often by the same dealer? i know this explanation is not en vogue since it would require the gov't to take its responsibility in supporting illicit drug use through its blind prohibition, but sometimes long looks in the mirror are what it takes.
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