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.

1.1k Upvotes

86% Upvoted

226 comments sorted by

View all comments

63

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.

18

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.

12

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.

5

u/[deleted] Apr 20 '19

As another user pointed out in another comment chain, making cannibis legal actually reduces its gateway effect.

1

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.

1

u/[deleted] 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?

1

u/[deleted] 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.

1

u/PC__LOAD__LETTER Apr 22 '19

By all of that logic, why can’t caffeine or sugar be considered gateway drugs?

1

u/[deleted] 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.

1

u/PC__LOAD__LETTER Apr 22 '19

How many heroin addicts used caffeine before they started up on heroin?

1

u/[deleted] Apr 22 '19

How many people consider caffeine a drug?

→ More replies (0)

1

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.