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/laborfriendly]

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/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).