The Gateway Drug Theory

Tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana are generally classified as "gateway drugs". Gateway drugs consists of using these milder drugs during an introductory period to drug use.

Gateway drugs are drugs that are deemed to lead to the use of harder drugs. It is thought for example that by using a drug such as marijuana could lead to the addiction of other drugs more easily. This is because marijuana contains cannabinoids. Studies reveal that a large percentage of cocaine users first used marijuana. This may be because of marijuana is a gateway drug. However, this may also be because most begin with a less hard drug when they begin to experiment with drugs, thus moving on to harder drugs.

When a person uses marijuana as a long-term drug, the brain can become affected much as it would with the use of cocaine or heroin. One may notice that there may be a link between alcohol abuse and the abuse of nicotine. This may indicate that because alcohol has the tendency to create depression in many people, they tend to smoke to relieve their depression, as nicotine is an antidepressant.

In addition it is argued that those in their teen years are more susceptible to go onto to use harder drugs such as heroine or cocaine if they begin to use marijuana. The theory or gateway drugs is up for argument. Many studies show that there is not connection to the use of milder drugs and the use of harder substances. One should be concerned if there child is using mild drugs even if this does not mean that they will surely go onto to use hard drugs. There can be very serious and deadly consequences for the use of mild drugs, such as marijuana and alcohol as well. It should be noted that studies have shown that some begin their drug abuse with harder drugs indicating that all that use harder drugs do not necessarily have a history of using marijuana or abusing alcohol. A study in Britain shows that not only did smoking tobacco not cause a person to go onto harder drugs; it may in fact reduce the risk.