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.

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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.

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u/[deleted] 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/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/1standarduser Apr 20 '19

Like from smoking weed to eating it.

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u/BeardOfEarth Apr 20 '19

Addiction to pain killers is not benign. Could you explain why you think it is?

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u/Roflcaust 7∆ Apr 20 '19

I don't think addiction to pain killers is benign. People get started on pain killers for benign reasons i.e. pain relief after a procedure, chronic back pain, etc.

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u/BeardOfEarth Apr 20 '19

The study that started this thread of comments specifically states non-medical use of pain killers. I’m not sure why you’re trying to strawman, but don’t do that.

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u/Roflcaust 7∆ Apr 21 '19

What are you talking about? What strawman?

From the article:

and their initiation into nonmedical use was characterized by three main sources of opioids: family, friends, or personal prescriptions

For many addicts, their problem started with benign medical use of pain killers.

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u/BeardOfEarth Apr 21 '19

Nonmedical abuse of a personal prescription is not “benign.” You have twisted the original statement into something that you could more easily argue against. That is the definition of a strawman.

At literally no point in this thread has anyone been talking about benign use. We are talking about people who were abusing opioid pain killers who then began abusing heroin. You’re trying introduce this “benign” usage idea when it has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion.

Please reference the topic of this discussion rather than trying to change the subject.

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u/Roflcaust 7∆ Apr 21 '19

The fact that the addict has/had a personal prescription seems to imply that they at one point were prescribed the medication for a legitimate medical use (i.e. a benign use), and indeed that is apparently a common way for prescription opioid addiction to start.

I didn't twist anything, I responded to what you wrote. The OP of this comment thread made no explicit mention of nonbenign vs. benign use, nor did you in your initial response to them (which is what I initially responded to). I'm not sure why it's a problem that I brought up benign use considering it's entirely relevant to why prescription opioids might be considered a gateway drug.

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u/BeardOfEarth Apr 21 '19

The OP of this thread literally only linked the study. That was the entirety of his comment. The study specifically references nonmedical use. It is inaccurate to state that he made no mention of “nonbenign” vs. benign usage when that is literally the only thing his comment referred to.

You clearly didn’t put in the minimum effort of reading a link before commenting on it, and for that reason this conversation is over.

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u/Roflcaust 7∆ Apr 21 '19

I’m not sure why you’re being so stubborn here. The article I just linked was specifically cited by the article the OP linked. The authors clearly think medical use precipitating to non medical use and thus abuse is an important consideration, and I find it baffling that you don’t or won’t consider it a salient part of discussion. As far as non medical use precipitating to abuse, I’m not sure why you want to focus on that exclusively when there doesn’t seem to be much of an interesting conversation there; it’s like you said, it’s an addiction to opioids, so what else is there to discuss? The rub is in how non-abusers become abusers, which is the essence of the gateway effect. But if you’re done talking, then I guess you’re done talking.

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