From: [w--li--h] at [ix.netcom.com] (William House )
Newsgroups: alt.drugs,alt.drugs.pot,talk.politics.drugs,rec.drugs.cannabis,alt.politics.clinton.alt.politics.democrats,alt.christnet,alt.christnet.hypocrisy
Subject: Re: Vaughn's misconceptions of mary jane - another Concerned Ignorant
Date: 8 Sep 1995 17:54:39 GMT

The Myth of Marijuana's Gateway Effect

by John P. Morgan, M.D. and Lynn Zimmer, Ph.D.

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, recently announced a new anti-drug campaign
that specifically targets marijuana. Instead of featuring horror
tales of marijuana-induced insanity, violence and birth detects,
this campaign is built upon the premise that reducing marijuana
use is a practical strategy for reducing the use of more dangerous
drugs.

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.

During the last few years, after a decade of decline, there has been a
slight increase in marijuana use, particularly among youth.  In 1994,
38 percent of high school seniors reported having ever tried the drug,
compared to about 35 percent in 1993 and 33 percent in 1992. This
increase does not constitute a crisis. No one knows whether marijuana
use-rates will continue to rise. But even if they do, it will not
necessarily lead to increased use of cocaine.

Since the 1970s, when NIDA first began gathering data, rates of
marijuana and cocaine use have displayed divergent patterns. Marijuana
prevalence increased throughout the 1970s, peaking in 1979, when about
60 percent of high school seniors reported having used it at least
once. During the 1980s, cocaine use increased while marijuana use was
declining. Since 1991, when data for the CASA analysis were gathered,
marijuana use-rates have increased while cocaine use-rates have
remained fairly steady.

The over-changing nature of the statistical relationship between use-
rate for marijuana and cocaine indicates the absence of a causal link
between the use of these two drugs. Therefore, even if the proposed
Partnership campaign were to be effective in reducing marijuana use it
would not guarantee a proportional reduction in the number of people
who use cocaine. To the extent anti-drug campaigns are effective, they
seem to be most effective in deterring those people who would have
been fairly low-level users. There is no reason to believe that anti-
marijuana messages of any sort would deter many of those marijuana
users -- currently 17 percent of the total -- who also develop an
interest in cocaine.

Nor is there reason to believe that the Partnership's new campaign
will actually reduce the overall number of marijuana users. For a
decade now, American youth have been subjected to an unparalleled
assault of anti-drug messages. They have seen hundreds of Partnership
advertisements, on television and in the print media. They have been
urged to "just say no" by rock stars, sports heroes, presidents and
first-ladies. They have been exposed to anti-drug educational programs
in the schools. Yet this is the same generation of young people that
recently began increasing its use of marijuana.

It seems unlikely that many of them will be deterred by hyperbolic
claims of marijuana's gateway effect, particularly when it contradicts
the reality of drug use they see around them.

If the creators of American drug policy are truly interested in
reducing the risk of marijuana users using other drugs, they should
take a closer look at Holland, where drug policy since the 1970s
has been guided by a commitment to diminishing any potential gateway
effect. Wanting to keep young marijuana users away from cocaine
and other "hard drugs," the Dutch decided to separate the retail
markets by allowing anyone 18 years of age or older to purchase
marijuana openly in government-controlled "coffee shops" which
strictly prohibit the use and sale of other drugs.

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.

Received by Iowa NORML from the National Organization for the Reform
of Marijuana Laws (NORML), 1001 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 1010,
Washington, D.C. 20036, on Tuesday, February 7, 1995.  For more
information, call Allen St. Pierre, NORML Assistant Director, at (202)
483-5500, or e-mail NORML at [natlnor m l] at [aol.com]