re the "gateway" drug claims-
paranoia.lycaeum.org
"The primary basis for this "gateway hypothesis" is a recent report
by the center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA),
claiming that marijuana users are 85 times more likely than non-
marijuana users to try cocaine. This figure, using data from
NIDA's 1991 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, is
close to being meaningless. 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.
It is hardly a revelation that people who use one of the least
popular drugs are likely to use the more popular ones -- not only
marijuana, but also alcohol and tobacco cigarettes. The obvious
statistic not publicized by CASA is that most marijuana users -- 83
percent -- never use cocaine. Indeed, for the nearly 70 million
Americans who have tried marijuana, it is clearly a "terminus"
rather than a "gateway" drug. "
...........
"Despite easy availability, marijuana prevalence among 12 to 18
year olds in Holland is only 13.6 percent -- well below the 38
percent use-rate for American high school seniors. More Dutch
teenagers use marijuana now than in the past; indeed, lifetime
prevalence increased nearly three-fold between 1984 and 1992,
from
4.8 to 13.6 percent. However, Dutch officials consider their
policy a success because the increase in marijuana use has not
been accompanied by an increase in the use of other drugs. For the
last decade, the rate of cocaine use among Dutch youth has
remained stable, with about .3 percent of 12-18 year olds
reporting having used it in the past month.
In the United States, the claim that marijuana acts as a gateway to
the use of other drugs serves mainly as a rhetorical tool for
frightening Americans into believing that winning the war against
heroin and cocaine requires waging & battle against the casual use
of marijuana. Not only is the claim intellectually indefensible, but
the battle is wasteful of resources and fated to failure. " |
