by drutopia

Created on: January 29, 2009   Last Updated: March 09, 2012

There are a few different thoughts to Marijuana being the Gateway drug. The first thought is the statistics being used. The Partnership for a Drug-Free America, in cooperation with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the White House Office of Drug Control Policy released the "Gateway Drug" theory as a campaign against Marijuana.

They state that marijuana users are 85 times more likely than non-marijuana users to try cocaine. We need to look at how they came up with this Statistic. The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse taken in 1991 is useless when it comes to the statistic on Marijuana users likelihood of using "Hard" drugs.

It was calculated by dividing the proportion of marijuana users who have ever used cocaine (17%) by the proportion of cocaine users who have never used marijuana (.2%). The high risk-factor obtained is a product not of the fact that so many marijuana users use cocaine but that so many cocaine users used marijuana previously.

This is turn shows that the people that use a less popular drug (Cocaine) have used the most popular drug (Marijuana) in the past. This also goes for even more popular drugs. Cocaine users have drank Alcohol and smoked cigarettes.

Now the second thought about Marijuana being a Gateway drug also comes down to the illegal aspect of the drug. If you had to walk by a candy rack everytime you wanted to by a gallon of milk chances are some of the people will end up buying a candy bar. This goes for Drugs as well. If a Marijuana user has to go to the street to buy a bag of Marijuana from a guy who also sells Cocaine eventually the marijuana user is going to buy some Cocaine.

This is Elementary Marketing, if you want to sell a more profitable but less popular product you place that product where more people are going to see it. The same goes for criminal drug dealers. If you want to make more of a profit you push the drugs that will gain you more profit. They will also push the drug that is more addictive and the customers will need to come back for more and spend more money.

Like Alcohol, if Marijuana was legal and you could go to the store to buy it you may get an increase of candy bar sales but you would see a decrease in the hard drugs.

In my path to illicit drugs I can honestly say that the Cigarette was the one drug that led me to expand. It was the first drug I did and made me feel that I was making my own decisions in life therefore I was closer to becoming an adult. After that I decided to try beer, it was fun and made reality go away for awhile but the next day just made me want to get rid of reality again.

When I went to Marijuana at age 14 I knew that was all I needed and never went to another drug. I actually gave up drinking and smoking because of Marijuana. I am not the unusual either, a lot of people that I have talked to in my travels have had the same experience as me. Now working where Marijuana is illegal and the only way it could ruin my life would be for me to get caught with it I have given it up. Was it hard, no, because I was never addicted to marijuana, I was addicted to the enjoyment of Marijuana.

So there is no link to other drugs from Marijuana it is just another case of the Government trying to scare the American people into the belief that it is a bad drug while encouraging going to the bar and drinking the good drug.

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