One of the arguments that opponents of marijuana continue to use is the “gateway drug” scare tactic. Not only is this phrase the basis of most of the negative connotations associated with marijuana, it just simply IS NOT TRUE. When the suggestion that using marijuana will lead to the use of “hard drugs” is rationally thought out, several questions arise leaving you (or me at least) wondering how anyone can still use this phrase without sounding like a complete moron. For marijuana to be this horrid “gateway drug” a few things would have to be true. First off, the marijuana seeking person would have to have relatively easy and steady access to marijuana. Secondly, this marijuana seeker would have access to other drugs and at some point choose the “harder” drug over marijuana. Now you might start to wonder – if marijuana is illegal and is purchased from a drug dealer (as is the case in any state that doesn’t have cannabis dispensaries), how is it that the current legislation itself is not thought of as the push into the world of hard drugs? Would this cannabis seeker conduct business with an illegal drug dealer if it could be obtained legally and safely from a medical dispensary?
A patient who visits a cannabis dispensary leaves with cannabis. Someone buying marijuana from a drug dealer may leave with cannabis, but what if the dealer is out of his supply? Selling drugs is his business, so he probably has something else to offer the disappointed customer. What about some Xanax for anxiety? Or possibly a little Oxycontin for pain? It can be safely assumed that the commonly prescribed 0.25mg starting dose of Xanax probably isn’t worth much on the black market, so the unfortunate cannabis seeker buys several 2mg Xanax pills not knowing how strong they are. (For those who aren’t familiar with Xanax, or alprazolam, it is a potent and short-acting benzodiazepine. It has a higher potential for abuse compared to other drugs in this class due to it’s rapid onset and short duration of action – the effects noticeably “come on” and “wear off” resulting in frequent re-dosing and effects that are easily attributed to taking the drug.) Benzodiazepines are schedule 4 drugs – federal law says drugs in this category have a mild potential for abuse. For the most part, they are safe when taken as prescribed. A notable characteristic of benzodiazepines is the possible dangerous withdrawal. Abrupt discontinuation of any benzodiazepine that has been taken long term can result in seizures, which can be life threatening. They must be tapered, and it is not uncommon to hear of patients attempting to “taper off” a drug like this for YEARS. So if the cannabis seeker chooses to buy alprazolam from his drug dealer he could potentially get addicted to something not legally prescribed and then return to the drug dealer to get anything available to ease the withdrawal symptoms.
If the cannabis seeker chooses to purchase Oxycontin instead, serious addiction potentially lies ahead. While Oxycontin is used safely by some patients, it’s popularity comes from it’s unfortunate abuse. Oxycontin has been reformulated in the last year to deter past practices of misuse that involved crushing the tablets and getting the entire 12-hour dose at one time, resulting in an extremely euphoric, heroin-like high. Regardless of the reformulation, it remains a drug that has been the cause of many fatal overdoses.
There isn’t a single death attributed to marijuana use but it remains a Schedule 1 drug. Ridiculous amounts of our tax dollars are spent trying to eliminate marijuana use; meanwhile drug companies generously “donate” funds to political parties. How is it ethical to allow this behavior to continue?
At the very least, stop calling marijuana the “Gateway Drug.”
-J
J, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your thoughts on marijuana and whether or not to classify it as a “Gateway Drug.” I believe that your argument, although tremendously observent and informative, did not convince me of marijuanas non ‘gateway drug’ status. I will shrug off the name calling, spark up my midnight joint and tell you why your wrong. You contradict yourself when you say its preposterous to think that someone who tries weed, likes the way it makes them feel would somehow think that altering their state of mind is fun & amusing and therefore turn to ‘other drugs.’ What you wrote let me to believe that you might think it odd for a teenage boy or girl to say, “well, if weed did this to me….I wonder what coke will make me feel like?” or go so far as to call the name of moron to any child or young adult who might have thought that “ok…marijuana made me feel like this…I wonder what ecstasy would do.?” Of course people think that way, its human nature. People are curious. Its innate and we wouldn’t be human if our creative minds didn’t compare A to B or wonder why it is that X doesn’t taste like Y. In addition, near the end of your article you gave an illustration of the person who is buying drugs from a dealer. You conclude that if the dealer were ‘out’ of marijuana, the dealer may simply try to ‘pawn’ off some harder drugs to the marijuana seeker. So I ask you, and that sexy brain of yours, why would the dealer think he could do that? I’ll tell you why, its because he knows that marijuana has opened the door for him. Its done the footwork. It opened up little jack or jill’s mind once and now the dealer can offer them a ‘similar situation’ due to his lack of a good connect for buddz. Isn’t that the perfect example of marijuana being used as a gateway drug? The dealer thinks to himself or herself…”well, they like smoking weed, which probably means they enjoy relaxing so…maybe he/she would like a xanax or 2?” or perhaps, its even more direct, “since they smoke weed, I’m sure they’ll love oxycontin.” You are right about the fact that medicinal marijuana is keeping a tremendous amount of people fighting cancer, aids, depression, anxiety, etc. off of extremely addictive narcotics. Thank you for your thoughts on that.