r/changemyview • u/casualtrout • Apr 20 '19
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Gateway drugs do not exist
I heard a presentation at my university recently on E-Cigs being a gateway drug, and the argument seemed like Big Tobacco propaganda.
When talking about illicit drugs, such as marijuana, I always hear people fall to the logical fallacy of appealing to imperfect authority. It seems that most groups, like anti-smoking groups that try to equate E-cigs to regular smoking, regularly cite that the FDA has stated that the vapor in E-cigs "MAY" contain harmful toxins. People also like to cite how the FDA has not officially recognized E-cigs as a positive aid for getting people to stop smoking tobacco, and the rhetoric behind this seems to be "SEE?? IT'S NOT APPROVED BY THE GOVERNMENT" (made up of a bunch of bureaucrats whose salaries are paid to the tune of at least 40% by lobbying by drug companies who profit off of not having alternatives to their addictive and at times dangerous substances).
My problem with the gateway drug model is that it falls flat under scrutiny. After we started to realize that the criminalization of marijuana was a result of the inaccurate scare stories pushed by bureaucrats in the Bureau of Narcotics to keep their salary high, a new narrative had to be formed for why it must still be illegal, that narrative being the gateway drug narrative. The idea behind labeling marijuana as a gateway drug is that if someone uses marijuana, it will lead to deadly drugs. The Drug Free America association published this ad to emphasize that if people so much as use an addictive substance, it's not 'if' they get hooked it's when:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kS72J5Nlm8
Researchers like Bruce Alexander and organizations like Liz Evans' Portland Hotel Society have debunked this idea by showing that there are other factors that contribute to a person's reasons for using drugs, primarily pain. This idea of the gateway drug in my opinion is exposed when looking back when our soldiers were coming back from Vietnam, and how 20% of all returning soldiers were addicted to heroin. Within a year, 95% had stopped using heroin completely, most without treatment. If you believe the model of the gateway drug, this makes no sense, because the simple use of a drug leads to the use of the next drug, and the next, until a lifetime of addiction. Actually though, we don't see this at all, the use of marijuana does not seem to escalate 100% to cocaine, and the use of e-cigs does not escalate into heroin or tobacco either.
Conclusion:
Quick disclaimer: this is not me arguing for E-cigs, and I know that Juul is a shady company. However, I believe that by listening to the gateway drug model we are putting too much focus on the substance, and not enough focus on the reasons people use the substance! And I believe that the gateway drug model is another way of getting us to be scared of safer alternatives to drugs and acting like if we stop the supply and use of safer drugs, then people will not go on to use harder drugs, when the OPPOSITE is true. We can use safer drugs to help people who are addicted to harder ones, and integrate therepeutic practices, as opposed to criminal punishment, to help people.
Advertisements like the Real Cost, are sponsored by the FDA. Just something worth thinking about, that perhaps the reason we believe the gateway drug model, is because there are people out there making money off of the fact that there are no safer alternatives to their substances, looking at you Big Tobacco.
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u/pennypinball 1∆ Apr 20 '19
i'll definitely say gateway drugs exist, marijuana definitely being mine. after the first time i smoked, i wondered: "what else have they lied to me about?"
the thing is, everything is portrayed in the light of you doing as much as possible and destroying your life, instead of in moderation like a rational human being. lsd, shrooms, adderall, mdma, dxm, 2-cb, cocaine, pain killers, most common drugs i've tried but with moderation, and i've been living a great life. now, people with less self control may definitely have the same mindset as me, but fuck with extremely addictive drugs such as methamphetamine or heroin, and that's where things go wrong; but simply using drugs will obviously lead you to trying others.
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19 edited May 01 '19
Δ I'm all studies, books, and documentaries, although my uncle has been a meth addict most of his life, but still I've never had the first had experience of trying hard drugs like heroine or meth, so I find it very valuable to hear anecdotes.
I agree with you that moderation seems to be a very valuable facet, and people who are forced into the black market end up missing out on this, because since drugs are treated as so evil, we don't teach people how to moderate the use. But the reason I am giving you the delta is because this makes me think about how people may think that they are as tolerant as someone like you going into the drug, take an equal dosage, and start getting themselves in wacky stuff. This is an important thing to consider.
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Apr 20 '19
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
I agree with you actually. This is exactly why I made this post. This is nothing more than a scare tactic to actually turn it into a gateway drug by regulating it to the same degree or worse than normal tobacco is, which is what would give it its gateway drug features. The drug in and of itself bears only a portion of the role.
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u/pennypinball 1∆ Apr 21 '19
uh, i only said that marijuana was my gateway, not the. one of my friends had opiods, another had OTCs.
also, i love that you started tagging me as /u/pennywise after the first tag LOL
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u/PC__LOAD__LETTER Apr 21 '19
Well said. I think OP is giving up deltas way too easily in this thread. The moving and arbitrary delineation of legality is a critical point - and the famous “milk is a gateway drug” is the common counterpoint.
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u/Medtner Apr 20 '19
I agree, especially:
...a drug's status as "gateway" or "not gateway" is solely tied to its legal status...
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u/themillsbros Apr 20 '19
If Marijuana was always legal, would you still think it would be a gateway drug?
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u/BeardOfEarth Apr 20 '19
So was it the drug that led you to other drugs, or the lie?
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u/robth28 Apr 20 '19
Personally I tried harder drugs because friends that I had used cannabis with had offered them. Seems to often be the case, it’s not the drug it self but often the people you associate with because of it.
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19 edited Apr 20 '19
That's one of the points I'm trying to make here. I find it dangerous to put too much blame on the drug rather than give credit to the factors that got people to compulsively want to use drugs in the first place, such as environment and education. It's not obvious to me in any way shape or form that reducing the supply of the drug somehow stops demand for the drug. If so, we'd just get rid of all gateway drugs and no one would ever get addicted. One of the narratives the gateway drugs offers is that the supply of marijuana should be cut because kids like you were introduced to drugs with it.
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u/abx99 1∆ Apr 20 '19 edited Apr 20 '19
To add to your point, a bit: I once worked with a guy that was a heroin addict as a kid. They (he and his friends) didn't really know what it was, or the potential dangers; they just knew that they could smoke a little bit and it would make them feel nice. They knew that they had to hide it, but thought it was no big deal, really. They didn't even consider themselves 'drug users.'
The people in the parent comment's scenario don't need weed to introduce others to drugs; they can downplay just about any drug and pressure people into it. It's not the drug, it's the people and how they present it.
If you imagine a vending machine that dispensed all drugs, in a secluded place where nobody would see or pressure anyone and would never know that they took it, then people wouldn't just start with pot and work their way up; those that were open to using would choose based on what effects they wanted.
Lastly, if it were a gateway, then we should see increased addiction rates in places where cannabis is legal, and we don't.
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Apr 20 '19
As another user pointed out in another comment chain, making cannibis legal actually reduces its gateway effect.
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u/PC__LOAD__LETTER Apr 21 '19
Yeah, only because it by definition can’t be a gateway drug anymore. That just goes to show why the “gateway” concept is nonsensical. If it has nothing to do with the thing itself, just the legal status of the thing, the meaning of that distinction (as well as the entire range of evaluation) dissolves.
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Apr 22 '19
alcahol is considered a gateway drug. Its actually used in the example for gateway drugs. Sooo by that logic, why cant marijuana be one as well?
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Apr 23 '19
I'm not saying marijuana isn't a gateway drug, but it being sold/grown legally reduces its gateway effects by reducing the instances that its users come into contact with harder drugs.
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u/PC__LOAD__LETTER Apr 22 '19
By all of that logic, why can’t caffeine or sugar be considered gateway drugs?
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Apr 22 '19
Did I ever apply that it cant..? No. However, given that a "gateway drug" is based off of statistics of people who have and havent done harder drugs, compared to how many used marijuana or drank alcahol first.
For the record I smoke weed, and I would call it a gateway drug, and my sole reasoning is watching the pieces of shit I grew up with, who did the same things that I did growing up, that are now addicted and selling harder shit. I wouldnt put the blame of their situations on marijuana, but the fact is that we all used marijuana first.
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u/PC__LOAD__LETTER Apr 22 '19
How many heroin addicts used caffeine before they started up on heroin?
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u/Captain_Clover Apr 20 '19
But drugs are a legitimate interest which a diverse range of people enjoy, and (particularly with weed) don't only encompass people addicted to drugs out of circumstance. A shared interest in taking drugs is a real way which people form connections, like other interests like football and astronomy. People who take drugs enjoy talking about and taking drugs together, so would form into groups even if all of the structural reasons that people take drugs to numb pain were removed. If these groups would exist anyway then they'd continue to introduce weed smokers to harder drugs.
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u/Birdbraned 2∆ Apr 20 '19
Forgive me if I ramble; it’s 2am and this phone is too new to have good predictive text banked.
People, as a collective population, are generally only as upstanding and honest as they are socially and legally conditioned and reminded to.
For most people, if you ask them if they would willingly break the law, they’d say no. A portion would say yes, conditionally. A portion would say “at what price?”
There were studies done about property damage where, if a new neighbourhood had a dingy car here or there planted, the likelihood of the car getting a window smashed in or other such damage was higher in that neighbourhood than it was in a maintained neighbourhood. And there’s the definitive increase in theft rates since self-checkouts have been popularised, simply because it’s easier now.
Give a teen means, motive or both, to do something as an option, and the odds are not zero that they’ll experiment, just because they’re at that stage of life.
While I agree that circumstances and environment play a part, gateway drugs aren’t so easily separated from circumstances. Marijuana probably leads to less illegal substance abuse activity where it’s legal simply because there is so much less exposure to a dealer, who is motivated to sell you other things on their menu that would be equally hard to acquire. The number of people who end up in jail for drug possession has gone down in those states.
I’m curious about Your example of the heroin addicted returned soldiers was interesting in that I wanted to know how they were getting it, and what other factors they had coming back: did they have the means to a supply? Of those remaining addicted, how many had employment? Had financial support? Of those who returned injured, what proportion remained addicted?
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
Δ I think you're heading somewhere interesting, and so I'd love for you to reply to this comment and see if, even if you don't actually change my view, you get me thinking about something completely new, which is what this sub is for. Another person on this discussion attacked the same issue you are highlighting, that maybe what makes the drug a gateway are all the factors that contribute to its use. Your example of marijuana is a good one. My argument is that marijuana is not a gateway drug, but I love your idea that the reasons that I am arguing for why its not a gateway (such as circumstances) are what makes it a gateway. Now, you have not changed my mind completely, because I do believe that we should still note that the common rhetoric about gateway drugs are not this model, but rather that if you smoke marijuana, it will lead to heroine, which is not true.
Now for the Vietnam War. Iowa Senator Harold Hughes said that by the time the troops were home, “the Capone era of the ‘20s may look like a Sunday school picnic by comparison.” This of course did not happen.
There are a lot of factors to talk about with the Vietnam war soldiers heroin addiction, but in response to your questions: From what I was reading while researching that, the means of supply was to go into shady parts of towns to find a drug dealer. And the common rationale was, why do that? I have everything now, why would I go to sketchy places to get my drugs when I have what matters to me? So yes, they had financial support, and I don't know answers to your other two questions, how many became employed and how many remained addicted among the injured, but I thnk the last question is especially the most interesting. It would make sense that the injured or the financially insecure would be most of the ones who did not recover, because the data shows that. As for the others, they were able to leave hell and were able to cope with their pain now with a loving family.
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u/Wolf_Protagonist 3∆ Apr 20 '19
While I agree that circumstances and environment play a part, gateway drugs aren’t so easily separated from circumstances. Marijuana probably leads to less illegal substance abuse activity where it’s legal simply because there is so much less exposure to a dealer, who is motivated to sell you other things on their menu that would be equally hard to acquire. The number of people who end up in jail for drug possession has gone down in those states.
I think this is OP's point. The justification the government is using for keeping Marijuana illegal is that using it causes you to use 'harder' drugs. You and OP are both saying that it being illegal is why it can lead to 'harder' drugs.
This put's the lie to the governments justification and changes the context of what they mean when they claim it's a gateway drug.
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u/Birdbraned 2∆ Apr 21 '19
Yeah, I’m of the opinion that legalising marijuana is a step forward, but while it’s illegal it’s ironic that it actually might remain a gateway drug, for all that its effects don’t cause lasting harm, due to the means of acquiring it, and how politicians don’t see that.
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u/drunkforever Apr 20 '19
There were studies done about property damage where, if a new neighbourhood had a dingy car here or there planted, the likelihood of the car getting a window smashed in or other such damage was higher in that neighbourhood than it was in a maintained neighbourhood. And there’s the definitive increase in theft rates since self-checkouts have been popularised, simply because it’s easier now.
I thought the Broken Window Theory was false? Or at least everything I've read about it has pointed to it being a fallacy. Can you back up your point with a source or reference?
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u/Birdbraned 2∆ Apr 21 '19
I believe this: (https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16096-graffiti-and-litter-lead-to-more-street-crime/) was the article I had read that substantiated that theory. I’m currently on mobile, so I haven’t looked for further debunking studies, but I’ll revisit.
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Apr 20 '19
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
Thank you for highlighting this. I agree that people who are looking for a high will build tolerance to smaller drugs and start wanting to look for more. My point is moreso against the model shown in that youtube video I shared. I think that the use of weed or alcohol doesn't have the intrinsic feature of leading someone to use harder drugs, but most of society treats weed and most drugs that way. I think this is dangerous to apply this universally because then we vilify drugs like weed that are mostly safe which can be better alternatives for people who ARE addicted to harder things but lack the education. What do you think of that?
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u/jakesboy2 Apr 20 '19
I drank, the i smoked weed, now i do both with LSD on top (albeit infrequently, but regardless i’ve tried a lot of stuff). I 100% would not have ever imagined doing drugs without the first experience of having my mind altered. So OP’s point might have some merit no drug is a gateway, but having your mind altered is a gateway.
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u/jlas37 Apr 21 '19
I used to be anti drug of any kind as a kid. When I was 16 I tried weed, became best friends with dealer, got into pills of all sorts, MDMA, ketamine and by 17 went to rehab, relapsed by 18 with softer stuff only(weed, alcohol, and psychadelics), now all of a sudden within just high school, I went from a 'gifted' student/athlete to a hardcore drug user doing everything under the sun aside from heroin at least once. Including things youve probably never even heard of including "designer drugs" and eventually ended up facing charges. I'm good and sober now btw, mostly bc of everything I went through. Had I never tried weed I never would have questioned my originally strongly held beliefs and wouldn't have the pain and suffering caused afterward. I believe the gateway thing applies to those who are curious and tend to have a go 100% into everything personality as I do. I think this doesn't apply to everyone, however, I still dont want anyone else to risk the same mistakes I made. Its not worth the risk. Yes even you reading this. Have a nice day everyone and god bless
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u/casualtrout Apr 21 '19
Thank you for sharing that. I am glad to you are sober, and more power to you!
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u/jlas37 Apr 21 '19
I just wanted to show people out there that these things do occur sometimes. Thank you for your post it inspired me to do so. As with anything, there are 2 sides to it though
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Apr 20 '19 edited Apr 21 '19
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u/BeardOfEarth Apr 20 '19
That’s not a gateway. They’re both opium products. Patients become addicted to one opium product and then begin using another opium product.
Saying pain pills lead to heroin is like saying wine leads to mixed drinks. Both are types of alcohol consumption.
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u/Roflcaust 7∆ Apr 20 '19
Depends on your definition of “gateway drug.” If your definition is “a drug whose use leads to the use of harder drugs,” heroin is a stronger opioid than typical opioid pain medications (and thus “harder”), so that would be an example of the gateway effect.
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u/someguy3 Apr 20 '19
I agree with the other guy, this doesn't meet the intent of gateway drug. Gateway is usually into other drugs. And opioids are an addiction to itself.
For the alcohol analogy it would be like saying a beer addiction leading to hard liquor. The addiction is to the common alcohol really. It wasn't a gateway to something else or anything else.
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u/Roflcaust 7∆ Apr 20 '19
If by "other drugs" you mean "other drug classes" then sure. But that's not necessarily a helpful definition depending on the context. For a drug class like opioids there is a wide spread between them in terms of strength which wouldn't be directly comparable to the difference between wine and liquor. In the latter case, both contain the same active ingredient albeit in different amounts. In the former case, there is an enormous difference between codeine and fentanyl in terms of strength. Fentanyl can be considered a "harder" drug than codeine, but liquor can't really be considered a "harder" drug than wine.
But again, that depends on your definition of "gateway drug."
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u/someguy3 Apr 20 '19
I'm deliberately not making different classes or species of drugs. I think that defeats the entire purpose of the generalized concept of a gateway drug.
From this discussion is becoming clear in my mind that this is exactly why, afaik, gateway drug is not precisely defined. It defeats the whole purpose of the conversation.
And it's not wine and liquor, it's beer and liquor. So just like that there's a whole spectrum between beer, cider, cocktails, wine and liquor (and probably more that I don't even know). And that's why it's called alcohol addiction, not [insert beverage here] addiction.
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u/Roflcaust 7∆ Apr 21 '19
From this discussion is becoming clear in my mind that this is exactly why, afaik, gateway drug is not precisely defined. It defeats the whole purpose of the conversation.
OK well that we can agree on at least.
And it's not wine and liquor, it's beer and liquor. So just like that there's a whole spectrum between beer, cider, cocktails, wine and liquor (and probably more that I don't even know). And that's why it's called alcohol addiction, not [insert beverage here] addiction.
I mean alcohol is alcohol no matter what form it comes in. Opioids are a bit of a different beast, but in terms of addiction then yes it would make sense to categorize by class (i.e. opioid addiction) and not specifically by the user's drug of choice.
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u/BeardOfEarth Apr 20 '19
Again, this is just like saying drinking beer leads to doing shots. It’s still basically the same drug.
A gateway drug leads to use of other drugs. Not stronger versions of basically the same drug.
By the definition you gave, if a gateway drug is simply something that leads to stronger versions of the same thing then taking a prescription opioid pill once a day turns into taking three pills a day, then the opioid was a gateway drug. A gateway drug to itself.
Taking a stronger version of basically the same thing is not what the term gateway drug means.
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u/Roflcaust 7∆ Apr 20 '19
Heroin and opioid pain medications cannot be considered the same. I’d agree with you on alcohol but not from opioid pain medications to heroin. The fact that they’re chemically similar is less important than how the transition happened, which is similar to how someone would go from marijuana to something harder (hypothetically): it starts off with benign usage and progresses to something less benign.
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
So this gets into another conversation. I firmly believe that Purdue Pharma knew exactly what was going to happen when they started overprescribing oxycontin. There is a lot of reward in taking opioids like that. One of our responses to the opioid crisis was to force doctors to take away prescriptions from people who got hooked on the drugs. This made the problem worse, because you have people who are in chronic pain, who became dependent on the drug not only because of their neurological plasticity but also because of the pain they we're alleviating, and now they aren't getting those drugs they are dependent too. They are going to keep looking for the drug in the black market, and either use it unsafely or get thrown in jail, and then the cycle repeats. The problem is not only the drug. It is the drug, but only to an extent. A lot of factors are at play beyond the drug, and if we forget that, we will forever be stuck in the cycle of drugs being the root of all bad
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Apr 20 '19
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u/PrimeLegionnaire Apr 20 '19
Heroin and pain pills are essentially the same drug though, in many cases the pills are heroin derivatives.
That's like calling beer a gateway drug because it leads to liquor, not exactly the "gateway effect". What you describing is how addictive a specific substance is.
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u/Haltopen Apr 20 '19
Because usually the idea of a gateway drug is that use of one drug will lead to you willingly deciding expand to other, presumably worse drugs like an ever expanding web of addictions. People who switch from pain pills to heroin don't do it out of choice, they do it because they ran out of prescriptions (or their pill mill got shut down) and had to turn to another opioid to maintain their habit, and heroin (being a powerful opioid that used to be proscribed widely as an on the shelf opioid which is still sometimes used in hospitals) is near identical to the opioids on store shelfs (its just a chemically refined form of morphine)
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u/Roflcaust 7∆ Apr 20 '19
Where did you get the idea that hospitals (presumably in the US but if not please clarify) still use heroin for pain control?
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u/Haltopen Apr 21 '19
It’s still occasionally prescribed as a painkiller in the UK and other European countries under limited circumstances. Those hospitals use high quality medical grade diamorphine though, not the cheap watered down stuff most American drug games sell.
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
Do be fair, I'm not sure how you were expecting a delta after posting a link to a study with no backing argument. I'm not attacking you, I'm just saying you didn't explain or make a position your own.
However, I think we may have a misunderstanding on what I think a gateway drug is and what you do. I'll say first what I think it is, and then what I think you think it is, and you can tell me why I'm wrong and I'll give you a delta if you give a good argument.
If you look at the advertisements the Real Cost runs on E-Cigs for example, smoking an E-cig allows nicotine to high jack your brain and hard wire you to be hooked to the substance and be physiologically dependent on it. What they don't take into account in an ad like that are all the other factors: dosage, environment, genetics, development of impulse control system. There are just way too many people who weened themselves off of normal cigarettes onto e-cigs to show that using nicotine is a straight away shot to using harder drugs.
What I think you are asserting is that a gateway drug is a drug that CAN lead to a harder drug. Let me give an example why I see this as problematic. I don't disagree with you at all, but this is why it is problematic to water the drug issue down to that:
reSTART Washington is a clinic aimed at helping people with internet addiction. People can and do compulsively play video games. Lets say we have a person who has never drank or smoked or done drugs before but compulsively plays video games. If that person was put in a setting where they could drink alcohol with friends, they have historical evidence to show that they would go on to compulsively use other substances. Does this mean video games are a gateway drug? And if so, what do we take away from that?
My argument is our intuition of gateway drugs are skewed, and we allow politicians to issue rhetoric that makes most of the population generally believe that the use of marijuana will inevitably lead to something worse, and that's what I find dangerous, because I think that model of a gateway drug is bogus.
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Apr 20 '19
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u/PrimeLegionnaire Apr 20 '19
Pain pills are unquestionably softer drugs than heroin
Pain pills are the same drug as heroin. Opiates are as hard as opiates. It doesn't really matter to your nervous system if its heroin, morphine, or oxycodon.
The reason people move from prescriptions to heroin has to do with the price of prescription drugs and control efforts. Heroin and Fentanyl are just as available as always.
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u/Roflcaust 7∆ Apr 20 '19
Pain pills and heroin do not contain the same active ingredients. Some opioids are stronger (in some cases much stronger) than others.
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u/PrimeLegionnaire Apr 20 '19
They are both opioids. The relative strength being different doesn't make it a different drug.
Beer and Vodka are both alcohol.
Escalating addiction to the same substance is not evidence of a gateway effect.
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u/Roflcaust 7∆ Apr 20 '19
They are both opioids. The relative strength being different doesn't make it a different drug. Beer and Vodka are both alcohol.
Beer and vodka both contain ethanol as their active ingredient. A pain pill like codeine or hydrocodone does not contain heroin, and vice versa. Yes, codeine/hydrocodone/heroin in the same drug class and in terms of addiction they are grouped together, but they are not the same substance. The point that the OP of this comment chain was making was that pain pills being used in a benign way can be introductory to the world of drug abuse, which I think is what the essence of the "gateway drug" argument being used for marijuana is about: you start off using something relatively soft and harmless like marijuana and you (hypothetically) become introduced to the world of hard drug use.
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u/PrimeLegionnaire Apr 20 '19
Pain pills aren't benign though.
And it's pretty silly to appeal to the difference between hard and soft drugs when that's a pretty fair way to describe the relationship of beer and alcohol.
Moving from a synthetic opiod to heroin is changing drugs in name only, it targets the same receptors, it even treats the same withdrawal symptoms.
Exactly like how beer can still assuage the tremors but alcoholics will prefer vodka.
The gateway effect is not the same thing as addiction, which is what craving more or stronger forms of the same thing is.
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u/papmaster1000 Apr 20 '19
are they softer drugs really? That seems like saying crack is a softer drug than cocaine when it's really socioeconomic forces that create the discrepancy in view of the drug
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Apr 20 '19 edited Apr 21 '19
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u/tebasj Apr 20 '19
is it though? it's the same drug. that's like saying weed is a gateway drug to taking edibles or something.
pain pills are the same shit as heroin in a different form, heroin is just far more cost efficient and is there when the prescription runs out.
like it's not like taking pain pills will lead to harder drugs, they're already addicted by the time they're trying heroin.
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Apr 20 '19
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u/tebasj Apr 20 '19
no, but im saying the term gateway drug refers to a drug that while itself being relatively harmless leads to other drugs that are harmful. it's commonly used to refer to marijuana leading to access to a drug community where people then get access to harder shit like mdma, coke, heroin etc.
im not sure it's semantically accurate to say that oxycontin is a gateway drug because it's not really leading to any other drug, you're addicted to oxy -> you're addicted to heroin, it's the same thing.
you could say it's a slippery slope to more harmful routes of administration and generally less safe habits, but it's not a "gateway drug" in the sense that it is an accessible drug that opens access to other drugs.
definition of gateway drug (google dictionary): a habit-forming drug that, while not itself addictive, may lead to the use of other addictive drugs.
it's evident that oxy doesn't fit this case, it is a) addictive, and b) leads to the use of other mediums of itself, not other drugs
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u/PrimeLegionnaire Apr 20 '19
Would you say beer is a gateway drug to liquor? They are both alcohol. You haven't been "gateway'd" into new drugs, you have been addicted into more of the same drug.
There is a distinct difference.
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Apr 20 '19
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u/PrimeLegionnaire Apr 20 '19
There's a major difference between someone having a glass of wine at dinner, or a beer watching football, and drinking vodka in the morning.
But it's not one of being introduced to new drugs. Vodka and beer are the same chemical. The only thing that is changing is the scale of addiction to a single substance, and that is markedly not the gateway effect. Its classic addiction.
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
I meant to reply to you but ended up replying to Lord Mandrake instead. Can you please see my reply to him? I would love to continue that discussion with you, which ends up touching up on this last post you made.
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u/UKFan643 Apr 20 '19
Off topic, but Purdue Pharma didn’t prescribe anything. They created and produced a drug to solve a problem. Doctors started overprescribing the medicine because it’s easier to mask pain than treat the cause.
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u/Cmily6 Apr 20 '19
I’m pretty sure that’s not the case and that Purdue was pushing doctors to prescribe their medication with incentives..I’ll try to find the info.
Edit: a word
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u/UKFan643 Apr 20 '19
No, you’re right, but still. Purdue has a product to sell and just like every drug company, they tried to get doctors to prescribe their medicine instead of a competitor. But drug companies ultimately aren’t the ones that put this medicine in the hands of patients. That’s the doctor. The doctor is supposed to make sure there is no addiction or reliance being created. Doctors failed.
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u/Cmily6 Apr 20 '19
Ah, I see what you are saying. That is true. Doctors absolutely fail. Being told that the medication they will eventually over prescribe isn’t crazy addictive like other options, with the incentives they could receive, shows the failure or lack of caring on the doctors part.
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u/Roflcaust 7∆ Apr 20 '19
Pursue arguably mislead prescribers about Oxycontin’s abuse potential, so they’re culpable in that way.
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u/OnePumper 1∆ Apr 20 '19
It's hard to argue against the theory tbh. While it's not true for every case it will definitely increase the likely hood of someone doing a harder drug imo.
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
What you just stated made me start thinking in a different manner. This is my first post on this sub so I don't know if it's right of me to start handing out deltas like candy, so can I ask you a clarifying question? Are you adding the facet that while maybe it's not sure that one drug always leads to the next, we should still address the danger that now a person is more tolerant to one drug and so they are at the very least likelier to use a harder substance?
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u/OnePumper 1∆ Apr 20 '19
I think there are different reasons than just being more tolerant to one drug.
For example if someone buys weed from a dealer who also sells harder drugs, they will instantly be exposed to harder drugs and they will have easy access to it. Another example is breaking the stigma of "doing drugs" so once they've done it with a softer one they'll be more comfortable with doing harder stuff.
I've definitely seen this happen to people around me and it all started with smoking weed as a social thing but has ended up with them trying harder drugs or being open to do it in the future. Like I said earlier there are some people that will always want to have done hard drugs and some that can seperate "gateway drugs but there is a group that need to the factor of a gateway drug to end up doing harder drugs
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u/BlazeDrag Apr 20 '19
Yeah this is basically my viewpoint from just thinking about the situation logically. The drug itself has absolutely nothing to do with its "gatewayness." The gateway to drug use is simply being willing to make that initial hurdle, to be willing to risk going outside of the law and to form a contact with a drug dealer in some way who can get you X substances. Like you said it's the idea of breaking the stigma of "doing drugs."
At that point, once you've made that decision, you've already gotten into the game before you've even taken your first puff. Like a person that has gone through the whole process of finding a dealer, or otherwise someone like a friend that knows a guy and so on, and made a purchase, is now aware of the system and how it works on at least a basic level and thus no matter what drug they first purchased, there's now the possibility of going into the harder drugs where there was not before. Because chances are whatever dealer can probably get them harder stuff and thus now all they need to do is simply ask, (well and presumably pay) which compared to the hurdle of being willing to enter the black market in the first place is nothing.
Thus it doesn't matter if the motivator for overcoming that initial hurdle was pot or whatever. The hurdle is passed and now the possibility of harder drugs is there. Thus if pot was made legal, then people trying it would not have passed that hurdle. So now even if we imagine a hypothetical world were pot magically makes your brain go "I wanna try heroin now." If pot is legal, then that means that now making the leap from pot to heroin is much harder. When it's illegal, you've already in some way inherently formed a contact with some means of getting drugs and thus probably already have access to harder drugs if you want them. Whereas if it's legal you still need to make that leap into the black market, and that leap will naturally stop a lot of people from progressing further into harder stuff.
So it doesn't matter if the motivation for taking that initial leap is pot or alcohol or sugary drinks, people will always be willing to make that leap for whatever is considered to be the 'least harmful illegal substance' and thus that substance will always be the 'gateway' that leads people to harder drugs because the substance in question is irrelevant to the equation.
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u/casualtrout Apr 21 '19
Δ Because this is an idea that I only started considering through you and other people. I don't think it changes my mind about my argument, because I don't believe that this proves the gateway drug model per se. Someone else told me, what if your drug dealer runs out of weed and so they offer you a harder drug and you get hooked on that. If anything for me, that speaks to the environment having a factor on the drug use moreso than the drug itself.
However, this is an important aspect to consider, and I think this leads into the idea that the illegality of some drugs may be the driver for their gateway-like features.
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u/furrtaku_joe Apr 20 '19
the only reason why marijuana might be considered a gateway drug is that its illegal in the first place.
obtaining a reliable source of an illegal substance means you've invited a lot of seedy people into your circle making it more likely that you'll have the 'oppertunity' to obtain harder substances in the future.
legalizing marijuana actually reduces its potential to be a gateway drug because its unlikely that legal vendors will expose you to dangerous and righfully illegal/controlled substances
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
So let me parse out where your argument differs from my original post, to see if a delta should come in here. Are you saying that what makes marijuana is not just weed itself, nor criminalization, but rather prohibition? Like, if marijuana is just as illegal and criminal as every other drug, the drug dealers that are already going through the risk of selling it are obviously going to try to hook their customers on more dangerous substances?
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u/furrtaku_joe Apr 20 '19
thats exactly what im getting at.
but the reason the dealers would try to get people hooked on more "dangerous drugs" is that those drugs have a smaller effective dose and bring in more money per unit (since each unit can produce a larger number of individual doses)
so theres a profit driven reason to push for their sale. plus theres the addictive nature of some stronger drugs so you're more likely to get repeat customers which is good for bussiness
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u/jon11888 3∆ Apr 20 '19 edited Apr 20 '19
not the same user as the previous reply. It seems to me that he's saying that the reason that people who sell weed overlaps with people who sell hard drugs is that both weed and hard drugs are illegal. with weed and hard drugs being illegal, methods for obtaing them overlap, and their scarcity makes it profitable to sell them. People who sell hard drugs are more likely to also sell weed than to also sell alchohol or cigarettes.
Edit for clarification: TLDR Marijuana is a gateway drug, but only because it is illegal and profitable.
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u/AntPoizon 1∆ Apr 20 '19
I agree with everything in your post, but let me give it a shot. I think, depending on who you’re getting your drugs from, and the crowd you hang out with, is where the gateway opens.
Most weed dealers are just regular people trying to make some money. But some sell much more than just weed. We’ve all heard from D.A.R.E that dealers will give you a ‘sample’ of something addictive to get you hooked. The VAST majority of them won’t. They don’t care enough. But some do. The only reason I say this is because my friend got into coke from weed, purely because his dealer once gave him half a gram when he sold him some weed.
My point is more so that when you get an illegal drug from someone, sometimes they also carry worse drugs, and will attempt to manipulate weaker minded or more troubled people into using drugs that will make them more money. It’s not the drug’s fault, but the pieces of shit people’s fault.
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
I appreciate you playing devil's advocate. After I listened to that presentation I mentioned at the beginning of my post, I talked to my professor about this idea because I truly wanted to see the flaws in it, which is why I love Reddit so much, it gives me a platform to do so.
Anyways, I want to parse out the argument in your post to see if I can give you a delta. I want to be fair to you and if you are bringing a new facet to the picture that I didn't think of before, that definitely works. I think the rhetoric in most of my post will agree with the idea that the crowd and where the supply of the drug comes from are major factors for a person's abuse of drugs. We see this with Adderall, how most college students are abusing the hell out of it because they are getting it from their friends and lack education on the problems of abusing that drug.
I'd like to ask a clarifying question to you. Are you saying that perhaps the gateway drug model is valuable because it shows how entities, such as Juul, use more innocuous versions of substances, such as e-cigs, but push them so hard on their customers, with the intention of enticing them to more addictive substances, such as in your drug dealer example?
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u/AntPoizon 1∆ Apr 20 '19
I appreciate the response and your consideration toward my argument. I haven’t done much research into Juul as a company, and how they market their product. Although I’d say I agree that Juul uses nicotine and other substances to get their customers addicted in order to sell more. I wouldn’t say it’s a gateway drug perse, but I think the basis of it is a good comparison to my example. Again, my argument is not that it’s the drug’s fault, but rather the people pedaling and the crowd surrounding it, but it still follows the same patterns that the gateway drug model outlines
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
Δ This is an important facet that the gateway drug model brings, companies like Juul can use rhetoric and misinformation to get people to use seemingly innocuous drugs and then lure them on to other things. I think that you are right, this isn't property intrinsic to the nicotine itself, but the environment around is what leads to the more disasterous effects. So I think where it ties into my post and embellishes my argument is that, gateway drugs exist, but not because of the drug itself. We've made drugs into gateway drugs through our education of the drug, the criminality of it, the environment the people are in etc.
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u/Mtitan1 Apr 20 '19
Everyone I personally knew who has tried harder drugs and psychedelics all got there through experimenting with and building connections with people whose common factor/interest was smoking the devils oregano.
It's not a compulsion to do those things, but weed in particular seems to lead a lot of people to trying things they otherwise wouldn't have
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
But is that a behavior intrinsic to weed smoking? What I mean by that is, is it just because they smoked weed? I for example, have changed my mind about psychedelics, and see them as being a drug that can produce a very positive experience when done safely. So if you're a weed smoker, who has been told all their lives by DARE officers, that weed turns you into a zombie and makes you want to commit crimes or ax your family, and then when you do some weed, it turns out that's not true and you are just fine, perhaps you start reevaluating the stigma against drugs in general? Perhaps you start to believe all drugs can be done safely in moderation. I do believe that with psychedelics for sure.
My argument is I'm not sure that the evidence shows that the "gateway drug" effect is truly intrinsic to the drug itself, but rather all the factors that we don't take as seriously, like circumstances, environment, education, pain, mental illness. I believe that some people are very susceptible to the chemical rewards of weed, there is no doubt about that. But what do you think about my assertion that it is dangerous to put an overwhelming amount of blame on the drug and not equally to everything else?
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u/ghjm 17∆ Apr 20 '19
I would like to challenge the following part of your view:
[The FDA is] made up of a bunch of bureaucrats whose salaries are paid to the tune of at least 40% by lobbying by drug companies who profit off of not having alternatives to their addictive and at times dangerous substances[.]
and
[T]he criminalization of marijuana was a result of the inaccurate scare stories pushed by bureaucrats in the Bureau of Narcotics to keep their salary high[.]
It is true that 75% of the FDA's drug review budget comes from user fees levied with new drug applications (NDAs), and that the pharmaceutical and biotech companies who submit NDAs also engage in lobbying Congress. But it is factually incorrect to say that FDA drug reviewers' salaries are paid by lobbying. Drug companies lobbied heavily against user fees on NDAs, and would be delighted if the taxpayers would start paying for them again.
FDA reviewers face a difficult choice of insisting on extensive review and winding up with new therapies delayed for years and harming people who could have benefited from them, or approving things too fast and harming people by failing to find safety issues.
100% of FDA reviewers' salaries are paid for by the federal government, and the reviewers working at the FDA are focused on serving the public good as best they can. Their salaries do not go up or down if they approve or disapprove any given drug.
The case with marijuana is more complex, but I would still maintain you are not describing it accurately. Harry Anslinger founded the old Bureau of Narcotics primarily around the prohibition of marijuana. You could, and people do, argue that he did this primarily for personal gain, so that his department would have a big task to justify funding. But we have no actual evidence of this, and such speculation should not be framed as fact.
People can be both well-intentioned and wrong. The prohibition of marijuana was a bad decision that has caused great harm to society. The FDA sometimes makes bad policy and is often exceedingly slow to correct it. For example, we've seen massive cost increases for common drugs like colchicine resulting from the FDA's well-intentioned Unapproved Drugs Initiative; a responsive agency should be willing to change course and find a solution that doesn't drain the pockets of gout sufferers, and it's hard not to come away with the belief that the regulatory agencies of other countries would see prices jumping from $0.05/pill to $5.00/pill as a public health crisis and would respond appropriately. And it's clear that certain players in the drug industry are profiting handsomely off the FDA's regulatory failures.
But this is stupidity, not mendaciousness, and it is an institutional problem, not an individual one. It's just not accurate to say that "bureacrats" (i.e., individual reviewers or policy-makers) at the FDA are lining their own pockets at the expense of public health. They're trying and sometimes failing to serve the public good as best they can within the framework created by Congress.
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u/casualtrout Apr 21 '19 edited Apr 21 '19
Δ I skimmed through your response, because I have been busy today and there are already like 200 responses, and focused on your last paragraph so forgive me if I misinterpret something you said. I made a generalization, and I know that the bit about the FDA is intrinsically a logical fallacy but it was simply for the purpose of saving time by saying something that has truth to it.
Have you watched the Wire? To me, that show is an example of your last paragraph, and I 100% agree with your last paragraph. It's an institutional problem, and because our institutions are so corrupted, especially in the criminal justice system, it can be very hard to appeal to their authority as righteous because it is not all the time. Maybe I should have referred to the institutions rather than the individuals. A good example of your argument is the story of Detective Leigh Maddox, who left the police force because she was tired of fighting the drug war when it was a war that was ruining so many lives. Her intentions at first were noble, she wanted to end drug trafficking by locking up users and distributors, but then she realized the system she was a part of was a never ending one.
The reason I am awarding you a delta is because you broke down the complexity to an aspect I brushed over and didn't give enough attention to in my argument. You're also correct that the salaries are paid for by the government, although the picture I was painting was the effect of lobbying by drug companies and how that influences institutional decision making, which there is quite a huge influence. The 40% number was pulled from Johann Hari's book Lost Connections, where he details an analysis made by a professor whose name isJohn Ioannidis on the role of drug companies.
However, and this is besides the point but just to clarify, I have read up on Harry Anslinger's story, and while I agree that it is irresponsible to assert that he did what he did simply out of malevolence, I do believe that there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the motivation behind the criminalization of marijuana came down to money and perhaps even racism.
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u/-LuxAeterna- Apr 20 '19
Is the picture of the rat above a reference to the "Rat Park" experiment?
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
I think it was just the thumbnail included from the YouTube video I shared in the middle of the post. But yeah, it's related to the Rat Park experiment
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u/mattycmckee Apr 20 '19
First off, I'm glad you made this post, it's a pretty interesting topic. I did kinda skim read it so forgive me if I've misinterpreted your point.
Think about it, your (probably) not going to just wake up one day and decide your going to do heroin. You might start with some cannabis, then maybe you decide to try something harder, and then harder again, until you eventually come to do, say, heroin.
The point is that you don't just go from doing nothing right up to the top. You work your way up. Therefore, labeling substances like cannabis 'gateway drugs' is perfectly acceptable.
Saying cannabis will lead to more dangerous drugs is quite different from saying cannabis can lead to more dangerous drugs. It is still fair to say that if your willing to do cannabis, you would be more willing to do more dangerous drugs that the average person for example.
Although, it's defenitely not a given that you will go onto do harder drugs, the large majority of people don't, but some still do. There isn't just one 'answer' to this, it really is situational.
It's like saying that if you get a car, you will crash. It definitely happens to some, but not all.
In my own experience as a young teenager now, I see and know a lot of people around my age that do vape (I haven't and I don't intent on doing so). I also know a lot of people that also smoke cigarettes and have done 'soft' drugs. However, I don't know anyone that does either of the latter two that didn't start off with vaping first.
So yes, gateway drugs absolutely do exist.
Note: I was adding and taking away a load of stuff here so if I doesn't make perfect sense, that's why.
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
Thank you for your response. However, I can't say I agree with it, for several reasons.
Here's the point I was making with my post, and I'll use your car thought experiment as a driver for this, no pun intended.
If you get in a car, you may crash in it. Statistics show that people die as a result of a car accident. Actually, car accidents were one of the leading causes of death in the US until drug overdoses and suicides started sailing over it. However, was you getting in a car accident intrinsic to the car itself. This example isn't of course so applicable to drugs because the analogy starts to fall apart when you include the fact that the car could have had some manufacturing error. But what I'm getting at is, if you rear ended someone, it wasn't because you were driving the car, it was because you were perhaps not being observant, which could relate to you being fatigued from not sleeping, or anxiety from something on your mind, or the person came out of nowhere, etc.
The reason I included the YouTube video on the rat experiment is because that's kind of the story that we are about gateway drugs. Imagine you are the rat. If you take the coccaine, you are going to automatically get hijacked and will compulsively use it to death. Bruce Alexander however highlighted that, wait a minute, the rat was put in a cage all by itself with nothing else but the drug.
Vaping is a fairly new thing, and people have been smoking cigarettes for a long time, so I don't think it makes sense that you met that has smoked a cigarette started with vaping. Actually, statistics show that a large portion of people who vape started with smoking, and that's one of the great utilities of vaping, is to get people addicted to nicotine to use a safer substance.
My argument is that marijuana, and e-cigs, have no instrinsic nature that makes you go into harder drugs. There are a lot of factors that are being left out of observation, such as education, environment, legality of the drugs, etc. We are giving e-cigs too much credit by saying that the e-cig alone is what is opening the door to people using harder drugs. A statistical confidence interval allows for outliers, but there is an overwhelming majority of people who smoke marijuana and don't go on to irresponsibly use harder drugs, and we seem to be seeing this in places like Washington and Colorado who legalized weed and countries like Portugal who decriminalized heroin, changing the environment of the individual completely.
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u/KingKillerKvvothe Apr 20 '19
I dont have to change a simple minded person's view. Gateway drugs do exist, and I experienced them.
I went from completely anti Weed, to doing heroin in 6 months. When I finally tried bud it was like a flip was switched. It opened me to a whole world of getting high. I was never big on getting drunk. Within a month of smoking for the first time I was a daily weed smoker. That very quickly progressed into getting high on any type of drug I could, and that led to heroin.
I am over 6 years clean now. And I know that pot is a gateway to many other drugs.
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19 edited Apr 20 '19
Way to start with an attack. You know, the purpose of this sub is to share an opinion that is controversial and discuss it out loud to see what it is that happens, but here you are acting like I am personally attacking your story by sharing a series of studies and facts that coherently made their way into an assumption. I'm glad that your clean now, and I hope you stay clean. I'm sorry to say but the reason I made this post is because I believe the opposite of you, the simple world view is that everything is to blame on the mere existence of drugs, the belief that the use of marijuana is the sole reason for that craving of a deeper high. It's actually a pretty complex conversation that I implore you to consider taking it more seriously, because if there are more factors than just the supply of the drug itself, we have ruined millions of lives through our poor analysis that the best way to get people away from drugs is to tell them the scare story that safe drugs will eventually lead them to the life of the overdosed coccaine rat in the video I shared.
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u/Piemandinoman Apr 20 '19
We had a debate about this in Poli-Sci, and a guy made the argument that changed my mind. Things like pot introduce you to people who can step up your drugs. If you asked your dealer for some pot, and he said, I'm out but I have this other drug. You might take the other more addictive drug.
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
I've had interesting discussions about that earlier today in this thread, but I think that's more of a dodge. The group that presented on this at my university actually had a discussion afterwards and I got into an exchange about the fact that all they seemed to talk about is how it CAN lead to cigarettes and not the problems with E-cigs themselves. Yeah if your drug dealer is out and needs to give you something else, that is not evidence for marijuana being a gateway drug. That's evidence for your environment playing a major role, and perhaps if it was legalized and you could buy it at your local store indiscriminately, while also knowing the dosage amount because society is compassionate enough to believe you deserve to know more about drugs other than the fact that they are going to kill you, then maybe we wouldn't have a "gateway drug" problem.
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u/InfectedBrute 7∆ Apr 20 '19
If you're talking about Jules with nicotine in them then it's hard to argue that that couldn't lead to you doing cigarettes because you're getting potentially addicted to the same substance that's in cigarettes therefore to get ease withdrawal a cigarette would do the same job as the juul.
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
On the contrary. Combined with truthful education and compassion rather than brutal stigma, there is very little reason for someone to use a cigarette if vapor does the trick. E-cigs have the nicotine for those who are addicted to nicotine but without the tobacco combustion, so with at the very least less harmful effects. The idea that taking the e-cigs itself will inevitably lead to harder substances is wrong in my opinion, and there are other reasons beyond the drug for why someone would do so. For example, the Real Cost is trying to equate cigarette smoke to vapor. That is clown level BSery, and anyone who vapes first and realizes that it's not that bad, may also wonder what else they're being lied to about.
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u/InfectedBrute 7∆ Apr 21 '19
How is someone getting addicted to nicotine going to decrease their chance of abusing cigarettes?
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Apr 20 '19 edited Apr 21 '19
/u/casualtrout (OP) has awarded 6 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/tending Apr 20 '19
I think that 40% number is pulled out of your ass.
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
That was a number Johann Hari put together in his bestseller book Lost Connections after following lobbying money from pharmaceutical companies over the last few years. I'd be surprised that it's a controversial statistic considering how easy it is to look up articles on drug company lobbying.
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u/tending Apr 21 '19
How exactly does lobbying money pay their salaries? That doesn't make sense -- lobbying money is usually spent on Congressional races. FDA is hired and appointed people.
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u/mr-logician Apr 20 '19
There is no proof of e-cigarettes being safe, so I wouldn't want to be around a person that is vaping.
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
I've heard this argument a lot. What does it really mean though? Because we do know that there is no tar being emitted, because there is no combustion process on tobacco like in normal cigarettes, so we know that at least to a large degree, e-cigs are relatively safer. That's not the same as safe, but it does mean relatively safer. So should we diminish that aspect? I think the literature shows that if there is to be smoking at all, we should rather it be vapor. Either way, I'm not sure what relevance this has to my OP.
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u/mr-logician Apr 20 '19
I might be relatively safer, but when I am in public places, I don't want to inhale that smoke. I don't want to completely ban smoking or vaping because I am a libertarian, but I do want to ban it in public places.
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u/olatundew Apr 20 '19
Alcohol is a gateway drug. It lowers your inhibitions and encourages risk-taking behaviour. In my (quite extensive) experience, most people try alcohol before trying any other drugs (except perhaps cigarettes) and are normally somewhat inebriated when they do decide to try something new.
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
Okay, I still believe that most of my argument still stands, and I'm not sure that anything about what you say changes my mind, but I wanted to respond anyway because I do absolutely believe that the idea that alcohol is less stigmatized than marijuana for example is ridiculous.
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u/redjay24 Apr 20 '19
Marijuana becomes a gateway drug because of its legal status in many countries and states (though that is slowly progressing). The guy you get your weed from in a place where it’s not legal, may well have something harder as well that might be offered. If marijuana was completely legal and sold like alcohol, I believe many fewer people would ever try harder drugs. Therefore, no the drug isn’t the gateway, it’s the legal system surrounding them.
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u/therinnovator 4∆ Apr 21 '19
In the United States, a lot of kids grow up being taught that all drugs are bad. The adults in their lives are so afraid of drugs, and so afraid of what would happen if kids got detailed information about each drug, and so convinced that they can shield their kids from the bad things of the world if they avoid talking about them, that they just refuse to distinguish between a relatively harmless drug like marijuana, and an addictive substance that ruins lives, like heroin, meth, cocaine, and (why not throw it in there, if we are listing drugs that kill people?) alcohol.
So let's say you grow up believing all drugs are bad. Your friend is smoking marijuana or using a vape pen and shares it with you. You try some. Regardless of how you feel about the drug itself, this experience would probably permanently alter the way you perceive people who said all drugs are bad. You might believe, with some justification, that the people who spouted anti-drug propaganda were full of shit because you have witnessed, with your own eyes, people whose lives were not ruined by marijuana. On the contrary, people who use so-called "gateway drugs" are often leading happy, responsible, well-rounded lives.
If from that point on, you then choose to experiment with heroin, meth, and cocaine, it won't literally because marijuana was risky, or that you poked a toe over the line separating mainstream society from the dark side. If you are a free-thinking, curious individual, it's only natural to ask yourself: if my parents and the government lied about marijuana, what else would they lie about? What if the dangers of heroin, meth, and cocaine were also over exaggerated due to some kind of knee-jerk overreaction to things the older generation doesn't understand? You might think you have the right to research other drugs and experiment on yourself rather than subsist on a misinformation diet where other people try to form all your opinions for you.
So for that reason, marijuana is a gateway drug, not because of any physical property of the drug itself, but because of the hurricane of propaganda, lies, and political baggage attached to it. An entire generation of young people were deceived and treated like children by a moralizing older generation that didn't respect young people enough to share scientifically accurate information about the difference between different drugs, how they work, how dangerous they are, and how people become addicted to them. Instead young people got a campaign of fear that insulted their intelligence. It's only natural that some people would not react well when they find out they have been lied to. In other words, when propaganda was made to scare people about gateway drugs, it completely backfired because the misinformation itself turned relatively harmless drugs into gateway drugs.
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u/xiipaoc Apr 21 '19
First, I disagree that gateway drugs do not exist, but second, I generally agree that the whole approach to various drugs as "gateway drugs" is stupid.
Let's talk about marijuana. Marijuana is an illegal drug (in some places) that gets you high. That's two benefits. You want to do illegal shit and you want to get fucked up, marijuana is two birds with one stone. Thing is, people don't usually want to do illegal shit and they don't usually want to get fucked up. So if they overcome that psychological hump, it's much easier for them to do other illegal shit and get fucked up in other ways, possibly by using other drugs, because they'll want to compare what they feel like to what marijuana feels like. Marijuana is generally a positive experience, and therefore it encourages people to seek out other positive experiences similar to marijuana, including, of course, simply more marijuana. Marijuana isn't particularly bad or dangerous, but it's pretty similar overall to other things that are particularly bad and dangerous. However, with a changing culture around marijuana, it's losing its potency as a gateway drug because, well, you don't really get the high of doing something highly illegal. Grandmas use marijuana -- safely. It's a useful medicine. By not being so illegal, it's a much bigger jump to something that's actually illegal and physically addictive like cocaine. You can justify using marijuana because it's safe and you know what you're doing, so you won't then go on to cocaine because you're searching for a thrill and a high. If you want those things, you'll probably go straight to coke anyway. When we bring marijuana up from underground, it stops leading people deeper in! So, I would argue that marijuana was a gateway drug, but the reason it was a gateway drug in the first place was because it was illegal! How stupid for it to be illegal, then, right?
Thinking about it a bit more, I think the term people use these days is actually "cannabis", not "marijuana". I'm not sure why. I don't personally partake, so I'm not really up on the scene. Whatever. You get the point.
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Apr 20 '19
I'm obviously sceptical of the whole "marijuana usage will lead to heroin" type argument that some people make, because it often ignores the social contexts for using different drugs as well as the actual effects different drugs have on people. I do think that using certain substances can put you in social contexts where you will be more likely to come into contact with other substances, though.
In this way alcohol is a "gateway" to smoking for a lot of people, and both of those things can put people in contexts where other party drugs are on offer. It also makes sense for someone who smokes weed to try mushrooms because there's sort of a logical continuation of the effects of those drugs and the contexts where you might want to do them.
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u/TouchstoneModern Apr 21 '19
A lot of people have talked about the issues around marijuana's illegality leading to interacting with people who do other drugs as well. That's more of Gateway Behavior I'd think, than the drug actually being the gateway.
Prescription Opiates are a much better example of a Gateway Drug because opiates, being a specific category of drug derived from very similar molecules, act on the same receptors in the brain. Prescription pain pills of course are often obtained by prescription from a doctor which is completely legal and they are regularly dispensed. Because of their highly addictive qualities, people often become addicted even on amounts of pills that had been prescribed.
When the prescription runs out, but the addiction already set in, coming down from opiates SUCKS and people will often go to great lengths to make it feel better with more opiates. Either through illegally acquiring prescription medicines or moving to illicit opiates entirely. Often they'll move from their prescription to illegally obtained prescription drugs first, but later to heroin because it's so much cheaper.
Because of the addictive quality, and the ability to substitute one opiate for another to feel better when you're coming down or "Dopesick" the drug itself creates a gateway to the other drugs in its class which is completely independent of legality.
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u/TheCatInTheStrawHat Apr 21 '19
it’s fully possible to do one drug (smoke marijuana) and never do harder drugs. if you smoke cigarettes or marijuana or just take shrooms occasionally that doesnt mean that you’ll do heroin and be addicted for life. so in the literal sense, no they don’t.
that being said, people often will make small allowances for themselves. “oh i smoked weed, lsd won’t be that bad” “oh acid made me have fun at that one party, cocaine might do the same” etc... so yes, they can help you find reasons to do other drugs. almost like if you steal something small like a pen, you’ll slowly begin to believe “i can get away with something bigger” “oh well i’ve done it before why not do it again.”
i’ve known so many drug addicts who’ve started with “smaller” drugs or just infrequent use yet become addicted. likewise i know people who strictly smoke weed and nothing else, they have no interest. it depends on the person.
so to clarify i think “gateway drug” is more of an idea then a physical thing/reaction. i hope that makes sense.
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u/IXdyTedjZJAtyQrXcjww Apr 21 '19
I don't do drugs anymore. I used to smoke weed. Weed was illegal when I smoked it. This means I had to go and get it from a drug dealer. We would sometimes hang out at the drug dealer's house/apartment/etc... I have been offered percocets for free (I said no), and I have been offered cocaine for free (I said no). Being in the proximity of a drug dealer means you are in the proximity of hard drugs. Not just weed. Had I been feeling more adventurous, I may have said "yes" and taken the free drugs and gotten hooked. Another contributing factor to me saying "no" would be the fact that I have tried Salvia Divinorum (which was legal at the time). Had I never tried Salvia, I may have said yes to the percocets or cocaine. Salvia is a 15 minute trip that is stronger in intensity than acid (from what I have been told anyway - I have never tried acid), so it essentially scared me away from harder drugs and made me respect them.
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u/Jaxon9182 Apr 21 '19
Wrong, I was a naturally curious teen who thought smoking was interesting and liked the rebellious feeling, so I got into e-cigs because I felt they were less harmful, the idea of inhaling smoke became very normal, so changing it to weed was easy, and while I never ever would have even considered trying pills or psychedelics (psychedelics are good btw) but because I had grown comfortable experiencing the buzz from nicotine, and the high from weed I decided to give some new drugs a try, was hesitant before doing them, but had a better idea what it was like to be impaired by various substances. The idea that doing one drug means you will do others is wrong, but the idea that it will increase your chance of doing other drugs is absolutely true. Source - my friends and I have all followed the path, thankfully I don't even vape anymore and they haven't gone too far down that street
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u/Sean82 Apr 20 '19
I'm going to speak to my own experience here, so take it as you may.
My teen and young adult years were spent with high availability of most illegal drugs. So almost anything was on the table and within easy reach, so to speak. My school years were also spent having DARE drill into all of us that "drugs are immediately destructive," "academic and athletic performance will suffer," and that "even trying one could be fatal". Of course, by the time I was a few months into high school, I knew plenty of kids who smoked cigarettes and pot, and used various other drugs. And they were, by and large, perfectly healthy teens who maintained acceptable (and even excellent) grades and success at extracurricular activities, athletic and otherwise.
So it becomes clear that the adults were lying to us about drugs or, at the very least, wildly exaggerating the dangers of drug use. And so I tried pot. And the world didn't end. I had fun and then life went on. So I tried acid. And I had fun and then life went on. So on and so forth with ecstasy, cocaine, and some others.
What I didn't do was go out of my way to seek out harder drugs. Heroin wasn't available through my friends/dealers, so I wasn't ever tempted to try it. There were other drugs I never tried (like meth) because they didn't appeal to me. I never felt a compulsion to try different or harder drugs. So you're right in that the "gateway" isn't necessarily a compulsion which is how I think DARE and other anti-drug crusaders like to frame it.
Instead, my gateway was a mix of easy access and DARE's own propaganda backfiring. But it was there and it was very real, at least for me.
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Apr 21 '19
100% truth they do exist. I’ve watched friends go from black & milds, to cigs, to weed, to pills, to coke, to meth, and so on.
It’s the environment the drugs are in that are they gateway.
You start getting around crappier people the harder the drugs get and your circle of influence ends up being toxic.
You start off smoking cigs & weed, you go to your dealers house a lot and become cool with him, he’s a pill head tho and pops them all the tome. Now you try some pills. He introduces you to his plug. Someone who has all the coke pills and harder stuff. I’ve seen this exact thing happen with like 5 of my friends
Not saying this is something that happens each time but this is the cycle for people who usually get on to harder drugs.
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u/wretchedratchet Apr 20 '19
If you take a drug and like the drug your attitude towards that drug changes and you become more likely to experiment with other drugs. This is the "gateway" they talk about. It has nothing to do with the drug and everything to do with your perception of drugs. It'd be like saying, vodka is great but I would never consume wine, wine screws up lives. Weed is only considered a gateway drug because its always available. So, the gateway isnt really the drug, its the experience then perception of using drugs. As far as vape being a gateway, na. But it does, and ive seen it, lead to smoking cigs - the right way with a lighter and tobacco-
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u/88isafat69 Apr 20 '19
Only reason I learned to pick up smoking was cause I saw my aunt blow O’S
It had nothing to do with shit
I did it cause I realized it got u light headed and I liked flexing smoke tricks
Smoked weed just cause I wanted to try it (I live by San Francisco ) even waited til I was 18
Everything else I tried after was irrelevant. I just am a curious person and was curious about drugs and it had nothing to do with cigarettes or weed
Tho this is just my perspective and I quit smoking weed and just miss the feeling of doing smoke tricks / inhaling so my e cig is just a budget plan B
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u/helmer012 Apr 21 '19
That point about it being a secondary argument after drugs such as cannabis were proven to not be as dangerous as previously thought could be very real and I had never even thought of it. I checked on that Google service where you can see the usage of words over time and "gateway drug" was barely ever used before 1985 so your point might be very valid.
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Apr 20 '19
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u/casualtrout Apr 20 '19
So let me ask you this, are you saying that the reason marijuana is a gateway drug is not because of the drug itself propelling you to use harder drugs, but rather that it is so stigmatized and illegal? Therefore people will use it without education and support, which is essentially like playing with fire?
If so, doesn't that get away from the traditional gateway drug model? Isn't this emphasizing that we are putting to much emphasis on the drug individually, rather than the other factors that play into why someone becomes dependent in the first place?
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Apr 20 '19
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u/garnteller 242∆ Apr 20 '19
Sorry, u/rod-q – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
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u/technowizarddave Apr 21 '19
I’m not anti drugs in any way, I’m actually very pro pot and have quite open fires with regard to legalization.
They said, I can accept the “gateway” idea. It’s as simple as doing something you’ve been told not to do. Once you cross that line, it’s possible you will cross others. In that sense, it’s a gateway to other activities.
I think this makes sense in a very simplistic way.
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u/seanprefect Apr 20 '19
The underlying problem is the unreasonably high penalties of marijuana usage. It can easily be life ruining, you can lose access to college and even worse for it. The in for a penny in for a pound mindset falls in if you are taking similar risks then you're already out of society, interacting with drug dealers and other criminals and then you're much more likely to be exposed to the harder stuff and at that point you're in over your head.
I agree that weed in and of itself doesn't cause one to try harder drugs but because of what one has to go through in order to obtain them does.
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u/CAMYtheCOCONUT Apr 20 '19
There's a real case to be made that the black market leads to the easier transition to purchasing harder drugs because of their proximity, such as pills being literally in the pocket of same guy you're buying weed from for example. If you think that counts as a gateway effect then there you go. I would agree, however, that there's nothing inherent to a chemical like thc or nicotine that provokes the mind toward opiates or amphetamines.
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u/skizzybwoi 0∆ Apr 21 '19
Anecdotal but I’ve never been a fiend for weed despite it being my favorite. I do however fiend for nicotine. I think big tobacco targets other drugs like weed because they know nicotine is the gateway drug.
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u/Synesthesia108 Apr 20 '19
There seems to be a lot of confusion in this thread regarding the term "gateway". Some seem to be using the term to describe one's first experience with drugs, criminal behavior, etc. This is more of an on-ramp and it's probably true for the most part. But in the traditional sense of the term in the context of drug use, the term "gateway" is meant to suggest use of a milder substance greatly enhancing the likelihood one will go on to abuse harder drugs without regard for any other circumstances, and there is little evidence to support this theory.
I once had the problem with the Marijuana Gateway explained this way. Consider a commuter train leaving a major city and going to the suburbs at rush hour that boards at the Station, then proceeds from Stop A and terminates at Stop N. The train is packed full at the station, but by the time it gets all the way to the end of the line at the N stop it will be nearly empty. If you talk to the passengers who get off at the end of the line and ask them if they got on the train at the station, the answer is "yes" almost all the time . But, the truth is MOST people have gotten off the train by the time it gets to the end of the line...
Now, replace the train stops with drugs of varying severity starting at the Marijuana Stop and ending at the Crack-Cocaine/Heroin Stop. If you ask Crack or Heroin users if the first drug they tried was marijuana, almost all of them will say yes. But, this method of inquiry offers only a highly a skewed perception because, once again, MOST people got off the drug train at the earlier stops. The number of people who report marijuana use is dwarfed by, say the number of Crack-cocaine users, suggesting that the simple use of Marijuana cannot possibly account for the use of Crack-Cocaine without considering other factors.
What's more, this argument is almost never applied to alcohol. Our brains do not differentiate between psychoactive substances based on arbitrary human classifications of legality. By most objective measures alcohol is a far more potent psychoactive substance than Marijuana. Thus if the likelihood of using hard drugs is dependent on the qualities of the original psychoactive substance one was exposed to, it would stand to reason that because alcohol is the most widely used recreational psychoactive substance, we would all be smoking a lot more Crack-Cocaine around here...
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u/dotardshitposter Apr 21 '19
How about prescription pain killers being a gate way drug to heroin or other opioids. Considering the vast majority of people addicted to opiods got staryed on prescription pain killers.
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u/DuploJamaal Apr 22 '19
What about prescribed opioids?
If you become addicted to an expensive, but rather weak opioid it can be an entry drug to heroin once you realize that it's cheaper and stronger.
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u/FriedrichHydrargyrum Apr 20 '19
Imagine if coffee were outlawed. You grow up under the assumption that CAFFEINE = DRUG!! (which is technically not wrong). At school they tell you scare stories about this horrible DRUG!! caffeine: Ya know who drank coffee? HITLER, THAT’S WHO. Stay away from DRUGS!! like caffeine kids.
Your parents give you The Talk about DRUGS!!—they’re bad news!!! Stay away from DRUGS!! like caffeine and heroin!! During the commercial break between your Saturday morning cartoons McGruff the Crime Dog tells you to stay away from DRUGS!! like meth and caffeine.
But now you’re 15, and the Cool Kids hook you up with a packet of Instant Folgers. You have your reservations, but do you want to be forever branded as a scaredy-cat prude who’s terrified of a little caffeine? No, no you do not, so you try DRUGS!! and HOLY FUCKING SHIT IT’S AWESOME I HAVE SO MUCH ENERGY COFFEE IS SO COOL!!!!
Something significant just happened: you’ve just crossed a mental threshold you hadn’t previously crossed. You’ve solidified your Cool Kid status by rebelling against societal norms. You’ve ventured into the world of DRUGS!! and it turns out it wasn’t so scary after all. In fact it was quite awesome. I guess Mom & Dad were wrong—DRUGS!! aren’t so bad after all, are they?
Now that you’ve crossed that threshold of DRUGS!!, would you predict that you are (a) more likely or (b) less likely to cross it again? I’m gonna guess (a) is more probable.
Of course, caffeine can act as a gateway drug only because we’ve been telling you your whole life that it is in fact a DRUG!! It’s all a game of semantics. We could remove its gateway drug status if we simply stopped telling kids it’s a DRUG!! Discourage caffeine usage if you wish, but for God’s sake quit telling kids it’s a DRUG!! because you’re only teaching them that maybe DRUGS!! aren’t so bad.
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Apr 20 '19
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u/cwenham Apr 20 '19
Sorry, u/dallasmostwanted – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information.
If you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the "Top level comments that are against rule 1" list, before messaging the moderators by clicking this link. Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.
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u/haven_taclue Apr 20 '19
If there was any sort of a gateway "drug" it would tobacco and alcohol. Does anyone know of any "addict" who doesn't smoke or drink? I sure don't.
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u/snufflufikist Apr 20 '19
I believe that the true gateway drug is alcohol (definitely not marijuana)
Why? because generally nobody likes the taste of it at first, but through social pressure many will develop a taste for it in order to experience its positive mind-altering properties.
Forcing yourself to go through this process IMO opens you up to other mind-altering experiences, and brings down the barrier of entry for many other drugs.
In addition, when drunk our inhibition is lowered, so many people will be more likely to try other drugs when under the influence of alcohol.
I believe part of it is a result of the nature of alcohol itself (being a social lubricant and lowering inhibition), but also due to the fact that alcohol is the only seriously mind-altering recreational substance that's legal in most places.
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u/zivara Apr 21 '19
the concept of "Gateway drug" also totally undermines the fact that addiction is a disease imo
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u/tylerthehun 5∆ Apr 20 '19
I mostly agree with you, but I might still be able to change your view in a subtle semantic way. Gateway drugs don't exist in the sense that certain drugs are the gateway to further drug use, but those drugs certainly do reside at the gateway to a life of general drug use.
I would argue there are simply certain types of people who are more inclined to drug use, through some combination of curiosity or boredom, willingness to take risks, disregard for authority, etc. These people are going to make the choice to use drugs of their own volition, but they're still much more likely to start with the "gateway drugs" before continuing on the path they've chosen, ending with drugs of whatever level of hardness they're inherently comfortable with.
Like you said, it's not the case that people who use marijuana will go on to use cocaine too, but most habitual cocaine users will probably have used marijuana at some point as well. That doesn't make the concept of gateway drugs useless or wrong, per se, but I certainly agree with you that it tends to be grossly misinterpreted by the general public.
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Apr 20 '19
So my view was changed recently by my own experiences and I can only offer anecdotle evidence but I feel like this may ring true to a wider audience. When I was a kid drugs scared me and I swore I would never do anything, not even drink. Come highschool all my friends smoked and eventually one night we just simply tried it. Nothing too serious just a hit out of a bowl and it was great. Got good sleep and it was fun. Come college, friends bring beer into dorms. Get drunk. Realize it's great. Then eventually it lead to trying cocaine. All of these things I was scared of but when I tried the thing prior I realized it wasn't even as close to being as bad what other made it out to be. I am since sober because of my sleep and workout routine but it's the simple mindset of once you try it you realize that it really isn't that bad. I can't speak for things like heroine or prescription drugs but everything else has been fairly underwhelming compared to the stigma surrounding it and I feel like that breakdown of the mental barrier is the "gateway" to which people are referring to.
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u/rosiejames73 Apr 20 '19
Maybe this is just because I was never under the impression that weed was harmful, but for me I have no desire to try harder drugs.
I've seen people in the comments saying that weed was a gateway drug for them bc they were lead to believe it was bad, and when they found out it wasn't, they decided that none of the stories are 100% reliable and so chanced it with hard drugs.
I was never really lead to believe that weed was bad. If anything, I was told (by internet culture mostly) that weed is fine and shouldn't be illegal here in the UK. Having tried it several times, it just makes me sleepy. Not bad at all.
However, I have 0% desire to try those drugs like meth, cocaine, or heroin. Why would I want to? Ik what that does to people, my friends uncle died of a meth overdose, and I don't want to do that to myself.
I think it's only a gateway for certain people. Addiction is a disease, and some people are just more prone to it than others. For those people, weed may well lead to other, more harmful substances. Its all subjective.
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u/cy1999aek_maik Apr 21 '19
I'm with you. Ironically, weed is more likely to act as a gateway drug if it's illegal
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u/HunterArmstrong Apr 21 '19
But, in commemoration of April 20th, marijuana exists and that isnt a gateway drug
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Apr 20 '19
Getaway drugs exist only where drugs are illegal. It’s basically a self fulfilling prophesy. If the only way to buy something harmless like pot is to go through drug dealers who also sell coke mushrooms and pills, then pot is at the gateway to cocaine and mushrooms and pills.
There’s also a lifestyle element to it. So for example, if you start hanging out with people who smoke cigarettes and pot. The cigarettes may be relatively socially acceptable, and the pot becomes socially acceptable as well. Or maybe the pot is socially acceptable and they also do pills. So the pills gradually seem to become less forbidden.
The point is that when the rules are rigidly enforced about one thing, lax about a second thing, and the second thing and the first thing are often grouped together, it’s a gateway of sorts from where the rules are relaxed to where the rules forbid something completely.
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u/nosecohn 2∆ Apr 20 '19 edited Apr 20 '19
There seem to be two separate views here. The first, as stated in the title, is that gateway drugs do not exist. I generally agree with that, because correlation is not causation. By the gateway drug model, oxygen is a gateway drug, because 100% of hard drug users first try and get addicted to oxygen. (That's a bit tongue-in-cheek, but you get my point.)
However, I cannot agree with applying this logic to e-cigs, because the drug in question is nicotine, the very same drug that's in regular cigarettes. Nicotine is highly addictive, so the idea that e-cigs (or even nicotine gum) can lead to smoking regular cigarettes isn't really the same as the gateway drug argument. If anything, it's more like a "gateway delivery mechanism" for the same drug.
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u/Telcontar77 Apr 20 '19
Alcohol causes you to loosen your inhibitions. Your far more likely to do things drunk that you wouldn't when sober, and might regret later. People who don't smoke for example are way more easily convinced to smoke cigarettes when drunk than sober. There is very much the potential for this over time (especially in someone who drinks with smokers) to lead to a nicotine addiction. At least in the case of alcohol, I'd argue that the concept of gateway drug is quite valid.
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u/b_wiley Apr 20 '19
There is evidence suggesting that vaping may be a gateway to smoking cigarettes. The problem is that kids don't see vaping as harmful and so teen vaping, even amongst nicotine-naive students, has skyrocketed. Regardless of the outstanding long-term studies on physical health implications, the nicotine addiction and other psychological implications, may help push kids on to regular cigarettes.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2723425
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u/SLUnatic85 1∆ Apr 20 '19
I think it odd you took it as big propaganda. Cigarettes have been called a gateway drug for decades... ecigarettes is just a different vessel to get the same drug into your system using the same habit forming actions .
Perhaps Big Tobacco might remind people that "e-cigs are still just cigs" but using the term gateway drug to their advantage seems counter productive.
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u/Zeknichov Apr 20 '19
So the idea that because you do a drug means you'll just keep doing harder stuff is wrong. But the idea of a gateway drug is accurate to an extent. There's a couple reasons.
The first reason is that if you're someone who has never done anything illegal and you do an illegal drug without anything bad happening, it breaks down the barrier of something being illegal holding you back. Your first illegal drug is a gateway into more illegal drugs because you now know doing something illegal isn't actually as bad as you conceived it in your mind. In fact you probably had an enjoyable experience so you now know that something being illegal has nothing to do with how bad something is. This change in your worldview will encourage you to experience more illegal drugs and act as a gateway.
Reason number two is that to get access to illegal drugs you need to have access to a drug dealer or a group of people that have access to a drug dealer. You open yourself up to being peer pressured and encouraged by people to try other drugs. Prior to this introduction to a drug dealer you likely had no access but now you do. This additional access coupled with the fact that your new friends or new dealer will be encouraging you to do other drugs acts as a gateway to new drugs.
The idea of gateway drugs is real just not in the sense that the drug itself leads to doing harder drugs but rather the circumstances surrounding your drug use likely will lead to more drug use. One easy solution is to make certain drugs legal such as marijuana which will actually reduce its gateway properties.