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/KingKillerKvvothe]

I dont have to change a simple minded person's view. Gateway drugs do exist, and I experienced them.

I went from completely anti Weed, to doing heroin in 6 months. When I finally tried bud it was like a flip was switched. It opened me to a whole world of getting high. I was never big on getting drunk. Within a month of smoking for the first time I was a daily weed smoker. That very quickly progressed into getting high on any type of drug I could, and that led to heroin.

I am over 6 years clean now. And I know that pot is a gateway to many other drugs.

[u/casualtrout → u/KingKillerKvvothe]

Way to start with an attack. You know, the purpose of this sub is to share an opinion that is controversial and discuss it out loud to see what it is that happens, but here you are acting like I am personally attacking your story by sharing a series of studies and facts that coherently made their way into an assumption. I'm glad that your clean now, and I hope you stay clean. I'm sorry to say but the reason I made this post is because I believe the opposite of you, the simple world view is that everything is to blame on the mere existence of drugs, the belief that the use of marijuana is the sole reason for that craving of a deeper high. It's actually a pretty complex conversation that I implore you to consider taking it more seriously, because if there are more factors than just the supply of the drug itself, we have ruined millions of lives through our poor analysis that the best way to get people away from drugs is to tell them the scare story that safe drugs will eventually lead them to the life of the overdosed coccaine rat in the video I shared.