cannabisnews.com: Cannabis 'Not Linked To Harder Drugs' Cannabis 'Not Linked To Harder Drugs' Posted by CN Staff on December 03, 2002 at 08:11:17 PT Teenagers often have access to cannabis Source: BBC News Cannabis use does not lead to experimentation with harder drugs, researchers say. US researchers said it does not act as a "gateway" drug, and that measures to curb cannabis use does not have a knock-on effect on the use of harder drugs. Instead, they say teenagers begin using cannabis, or marijuana, simply because it is the most available drug. They said they were not advocating decriminalising cannabis. Marijuana typically comes first because it is more available -- Andrew Morral, Rand But they did question whether efforts to control drug use should be so focussed on cannabis. The research comes as the UK government prepares to announce a package of new measures to tackle drug misuse which will focus on harder drugs such as cocaine and marijuana. Personality In the US study, researchers from the independent Rand Drug Policy Research Center in Santa Monica, California, looked at data from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse between 1982 and 1994. They concluded that teenagers who took hard drugs did so whether they had first tried cannabis or not. Researchers said the likelihood of cocaine or heroin users having previously used cannabis was high, not because of the gateway effect, but because of their personalities. Andrew Morral of Rand said: "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. "Marijuana typically comes first because it is more available." He said the findings would impact on drug policies, because they suggested reducing or eliminating the availability of cannabis would be "unlikely to make a 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 abuse," he added. But Mr Morral said cannabis should not be legalised or decriminalised. "Even without the effects of the 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. "Moreover, marijuana itself can be a serious problem for those who become dependent on it." Taking risks A spokesman for the UK charity Drugscope backed the study's findings. He told BBC News Online: "Sixty per cent of young people aged 20 to 24 have used cannabis, but only 1% of that age group have used harder drugs. "So the idea of cannabis leading people in that direction is misleading." He criticised the gateway theory, and backed decriminalisation of cannabis use. He said people who used harder drugs were more likely to have "risk averse" lifestyles and to have misused other substances, including cannabis, tobacco and alcohol. Research has linked cannabis use to depression and schizophrenia, and a recent study suggested smoking the drug harm the lungs more than smoking tobacco. The research is published in the journal Addiction. Source: BBC News (UK Web) Published: Tuesday, December 3, 2002Copyright: 2002 BBC Website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/ Contact: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/Related Articles & Web Sites:RAND http://www.rand.org/ DrugScope UKhttp://www.drugscope.org.uk/Gateway Effect of Marijuana Doubted http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14881.shtml Marijuana Does Not Lead To Hard Drugs http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14880.shtmlMarijuana No Gateway To Cocaine and Heroinhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14879.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #8 posted by cltrldmg on December 04, 2002 at 06:28:03 PT another article Sorry for posting twice. There's another good article on the BBC that helps dispel the myth that Colin Powell is the good guy in the administration. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2541527.stmI went to a meeting a couple of weeks ago organised by a Columbia Solidarity movement (I think that's the name) about recent events in Columbia. There was a woman there who was a lawyer representing peasant farmers driven off their land by the drug war/multinational corporations who'd been forced to leave with her daughter because paramilitaries had threatened to kill her. Apparently the situation is getting really bad under the new president. All the issues are actually linked up, the drug war, neo-liberalisation and paramilitary death squads. There's now more and more proof that companies such as BP and Coca Cola have been employing the paramilitaries to break trade unions in their factorys, and a case has been started in Atlanta.Interestingly, the main speaker said that the drug war and spraying of crops are not about drugs at all. He thinks it is a cover, the spraying of crops helps multinationals (backed by the Colombian government and US) by providing an excuse to drive poor farmers off the land into the slums so they can build oil-pipelines, and gives the government more control over the population. Basically this is state terror. It probably also drives up prices of locally produced food forcing the country to import from the west. [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by cltrldmg on December 04, 2002 at 06:12:33 PT britain still has a very long way to go FoM, there's an editorial in the guardian you might want to put up: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,853413,00.html [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by FoM on December 03, 2002 at 13:21:58 PT byrd Welcome to Cannabis News. We are very fortunate to have such fine commentors. I've learn a lot from them. I think many people have. [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by byrd on December 03, 2002 at 13:15:40 PT The US media carried this story on their web pages. MSNBC, CNN and Fox news all carried the story. It wasn't mentioned on the main page though - I had to run a search for it on their web pages. Typical.Hi to everyone out there from St. Louis. Long time reader, first time poster. You guys are great. Good discussions. [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by Nasarius on December 03, 2002 at 12:07:49 PT Yeah... "Even without the effects of the 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."'Cause we all know that the social acceptance of alcohol has directly lead to everyone thinking heroin is OK...Good study, though. Wonder if any US news outlets will carry it? [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by freddybigbee on December 03, 2002 at 11:58:24 PT: Link, the word of the week "Research has linked cannabis use to depression and schizophrenia, and a recent study suggested smoking the drug harm the lungs more than smoking tobacco."Isn't it funny how the pols and media latch onto words and then beat them to death? We rarely heard about terrorism, and then all of a sudden everything under the sun is terrorism. Now "link" is the great word for the spin-miesters of the world. Cannabis is linked to insanity and mayhem, cannabis is linked to terrorism, cannabis is linked to lung cancer.If you think cannabis causes depression and schizophrenia, say it causes depression and schizophrenia. Why this sleazy word "linked?""a recent study suggested smoking the drug harm the lungs more than smoking tobacco." Did the report say smoking cannabis harms the lungs more than smoking tobacco? If so, say so! Why the use of the word "suggested?"When I hear slippery language like that, I conclude the speaker is attempting to make me believe something that they are not even willing to state unambiguously. I conclude that they are spin-miesters.In conclusion, may I suggest that cannabis is linked to terrorism only in the minds of those paid to obfuscate. By the way, people don't smoke "the drug," they smoke the herb that sooths all sorts of trauma; even that caused by violent prohibitionists. [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by The GCW on December 03, 2002 at 11:08:55 PT Earth would be better if PROHITIONISTS stop caging humans for using a plant. (they can still have the urine)Canadian Senate recommends legalization http://www.hempbc.com/articles/2652.htmlby Dana Larsen (02 Dec, 2002) Comprehensive report calls for legal pot and erasure of criminal records.It is time to stop caging humans for using cannabis.The Canadian Senate said the same things... [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by Truth on December 03, 2002 at 09:31:06 PT tobacco kills It should be simple for even the prohibitionist to see. If cannabis was more harmful then tobacco to the lungs there would be a lot of cannabis only smoking folks with big lung problems. Since this isn't the case it's the folks making the dishonest claims to be the ones with big problems. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment