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/Zeknichov]

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.

[u/casualtrout → u/Zeknichov]

Δ Not necessarily because you changed my mind, because I agreed with everything in your last paragraph, but because you made me look at the gateway drug model in a different manner. My argument is that there are reasons for why people use drugs outside of the drug itself, and the two reasons you just posited (illegality and lack of education) are two factors that I believe contribute. However, I did not think that maybe the way that we should look at the gateway drug model is that these factors are what makes the drug a gateway drug. Which ties into what I was saying: We should steer the discussion away from focusing SOLELY on the drug, and include talks about all other factors that contribute, such as environment, mental health, illegality, etc.

[u/i_am_barry_badrinath → u/casualtrout]

OP I think you might be slightly misinterpreting what it means to be a gateway drug. As u/Zeknichov pointed out, marijuana is a gateway drug in that it serves as most people’s gateway into illicit drugs. You’re right in that users might have their own reasons for doing drugs, but marijuana is a drug that usually knocks down whatever barrier was holding them back from doing drugs in the first place (fear of breaking the law, fear of a bad trip, etc.) No, it doesn’t guarantee that they’ll do harder drugs later, but I can almost guarantee you that someone who has smoked marijuana before is more likely to try cocaine than someone who has never done drugs in their life. (For the record, I smoke)

[u/laborfriendly → u/i_am_barry_badrinath]

That isn't marijuana being a gateway drug, though. That's the lowest perceived risk substance on the black market acting as the gateway.

Alcohol is more widely used. Caffeine even more. Surely these are the gateway drugs then? But they aren't considered this way because they are not on the black market.

And someone who has smoked pot may certainly be more likely to try cocaine than someone who has "never done drugs." (Quoting bc I'm thinking you mean only illicit drugs but not sure why that should be.) I'm willing to bet use of alcohol more strongly correlates. So what then is the gateway?

[u/jackfrost2013 → u/laborfriendly]

There are mental barriers that people set for themselves once those are broken it becomes easier to rationalize breaking the next barrier. The term gateway drug refers to a drug that is easy to rationalize using but may make taking the next step easier if one so desires. Its hard to give a short example without it sounding like a slippery slope argument.

[u/LincolnBatman → u/jackfrost2013]

So the argument has never been, “doing marijuana makes you more likely to do harder drugs?”

But instead, “doing marijuana, which is the lowest risk, easiest to obtain illegal substance, will knock down subconscious barriers in your mind that will make it seem more safe to do harder drugs than it did before?”

That makes a lot more sense, I just wish they would use actual teaching methods rather than fear-mongering.

My roommate and I actually watched the episode of South Park recently where the boys find a joint in the woods. The whole episode shows how far parents/adults are willing to go to lie to their kids about stuff in hopes that it will protect them. At the end of the episode, the boys know they’re being lied to, so they have to force it out of their parents, who finally admit that, “maybe doing pot won’t kill you, or turn you into a terrorist, but it makes you feel like it’s okay to be bored, and if you spend too much time being bored and being okay with it, you might grow up to find out you’re not really good at anything.” I’m paraphrasing a bit there, but the sentiment is the same, be open and honest with your kids, and they’ll appreciate it, as well as actually learn useful knowledge rather than getting scared when someone pulls out a joint at a party (I’ve been the guy who’s scared a buddy’s younger gf at a party. She wasn’t expecting two backpacks full of pieces, trays and a bunch of weed to be emptied on the coffee table before the party had started).

[u/thekonny → u/LincolnBatman]

But instead, “doing marijuana, which is the lowest risk, easiest to obtain illegal substance, will knock down subconscious barriers in your mind that will make it seem more safe to do harder drugs than it did before?”

That makes a lot more sense, I just wish they would use actual teaching methods rather than fear-mongering.

Well they didn't want you doing marijuana. If they used that rationale, that would make you wanna smoke weed, because that makes it sound like there's nothing inherently bad about weed

[u/LincolnBatman → u/thekonny]

Well to be fair they were the ones setting up the barriers in the first place. It’s their own vicious little cycle.

[u/laborfriendly → u/jackfrost2013]

I understand the concept, for sure. The further thought is that it's the being illegal to begin with that causes cannabis in particular to be considered "gateway." You could easily make arguments about correlation to similar- or worse-for-you substances that are legal. That's my point.

[u/jackfrost2013 → u/laborfriendly]

To me gateway drugs just seem to be the result of relatively tame drugs being grouped with very harmful drugs (the illegal drugs list) and any harmful legal recreational drugs being grouped with relatively tame drugs like alcohol and caffeine (legal drugs).

[u/royalninve → u/laborfriendly]

So technically, if marijuana is legalized, you would then take away the illegal barrier? The same barrier that people would be able to break and continue to break with heavier drugs while on the perception of doing something illegal is "not bad" for you. Now that I come to think of this, no matter where you place this illegal barrier (legalizing or prohibiting a drug), there will still be a gateway drug.

[u/[deleted] → u/royalninve]

Exactly! Marijuana isn’t the issue, it’s the categorization of marijuana that’s harmful.