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Morral AR, McCaffrey DF, Paddock SM. 
“Reassessing the marijuana gateway effect”. 
Addiction. 2002 Dec 10;97(12):1493-504.
Abstract
Strong associations between marijuana use and initiation of hard drugs are cited in support of the claim that marijuana use per se increases youths' risk of initiating hard drugs (the 'marijuana gateway' effect). This report examines whether these associations could instead be explained as the result of a common factor-drug use propensity-influencing the probability of both marijuana and other drug use.
Comments and Responses to this Article
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earth
Jan 16, 2014 21:10
Gateway Theory Debunked #

A number of scientific and medical reviews have documented that the earlier anti-cannabis arguments of cannabis being a 'gateway drug' are flawed. The problem is that something that precedes another thing cannot be reasonably considered to cause the later thing. Drinking milk as a baby cannot be considered causal for heroin use, as an obvious example. Cannabis use and cocaine, heroin, meth, or other drug use are much more closely tied behaviors, but the simple fact of a relatively safe behavior preceding a more dangerous behavior is not sufficient to blame the safe behavior (smoking cannabis) as the cause of the later, dangerous behavior (injecting heroin).
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