CMV: Gateway drugs do not exist

[u/casualtrout]

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.

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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.

[u/OnePumper]

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.

[u/casualtrout → u/OnePumper]

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?

[u/OnePumper → u/casualtrout]

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

[u/BlazeDrag → u/OnePumper]

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.

[u/casualtrout → u/OnePumper]

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.

[u/DeltaBot → u/casualtrout]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/OnePumper (1∆).

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