Last Updated on December 10, 2019 by Valarie Ward

Do you know what a gateway drug is? The definition just might surprise you. We covered it when discussing the real gateway drug, alcohol. To summarize, a gateway drug is one that leads to the use of harder and addictive drugs. It doesn’t have to be addictive itself. A gateway drug can quite literally be anything that forms a habit, establishes a pattern. It opens the door to using hard, dangerous, addictive substances. According to our source from Dank Nation Dispensary, the most common gateway drug in America is alcohol. Marijuana gets a bad rep as the gateway drug. But what about medical marijuana? Is it a gateway drug? Is it different from recreational weed?

Weeding Through the Weeds

The Age of Information has been great. We have an unprecedented amount of material at our fingertips thanks to the Internet. Never has researching been more convenient, but there’s also a growing problem with the plethora of information available. There’s a lot of crap – roadkill if you will – gumming up the Information Highway.

Take, for example, the topic of this blog post. How would you answer the question? You’d probably Google it. In today’s top five results, you would see the following:

1. Is marijuana a gateway drug? (Answered by the National Institute on Drug Abuse)
2. Is Medical Marijuana a Gateway Drug? (A copy of an academic paper)
3. Marijuana is Not, Repeat Not, a Gateway Drug (As reported on by Newsweek)
4. Marijuana has Proven to be a Gateway Drug (By the New York Times)
5. Is Marijuana a Gateway Drug? (Answered by the Drug Policy Alliance)

Within the top five ranked results, contradictory information in the form of Newsweek versus the New York Times is present. Here’s where things get tricky. Which websites do you visit to compile research?

The average person gravitates to what supports their opinion or view, to what proves the point they want to make. They also consider the results shown in the first pages of a search engine as the most relevant and authoritative. Here’s the rub: Pages showing in today’s top five to ten results can change overnight. There’s a gigantic business behind search engine optimization because everyone knows the websites that get the most traffic place on that coveted first page of search engine results. So every business that wants to make money does everything they can to land one of those top spots, even if only for a short time. As a result, a lot of the top websites in online searches are not authoritative; they’re just good at gaining attention.

Weeding through opinions versus facts (and authoritative versus armature information) online takes time and dedication; it takes knowing how to verify a source and taking the time do so. But when it comes to writing an informative blog (like this one), it also takes something else – real-world knowledge and expertise in the field.

Medical Marijuana Isn’t By Itself a Gateway Drug

According to DrugScience.org, the Centre for Economic Policy Research, London, published a verifiable study in 2001 with findings based on a 10-year study. It conclusively supports the theory that marijuana is not a gateway drug, showing that the use of marijuana is not a stepping stone to harder drugs, such as cocaine. The study proved that personal characteristics and a predilection to experimentation were the biggest determining factors in whether a person tried hard drugs.

Medical marijuana is not different from recreational. The distinction between the two is primarily legal in nature. Medical marijuana is approved for monitored administration and can be used where recreational marijuana is illegal. Recreational cannabis is largely illegal in the United States, but that doesn’t stop people from using.

Addiction is most often the result of medically established risk factors, not the sole product of a substance, addictive or not. Some substances lend themselves to abuse or addiction risk, but for many, the development of addiction is a disease, not a choice. While some people do use marijuana before turning to drugs like cocaine and heroin, the link between marijuana as a gateway to the development of addiction is weak at best. Far more people use alcohol regularly and develop a substance addiction, whether to the alcohol or another substance. The very nature of addiction involves the reward circuit of the brain, and it’s the release of dopamine – the euphoria experienced through that release – that ultimately drives addiction.

Newsweek’s report unbiasedly states, “When analyzing what acts as a “gateway” to hard drug use, there are a number of factors at play. None involve marijuana.” Environment and health factors play the biggest roles in creating a gateway to hard use.

Meanwhile, the reputable and respected New York Times states, “Marijuana use is positively correlated with alcohol use and cigarette use, as well as illegal drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine.” The Times isn’t wrong, but what their report lacks is an unbiased approach. The sheer number of people who try marijuana (approximately 1 in 8) easily overlaps the number of people who develop a drug or alcohol addiction issue, which reasonably explains why the belief that marijuana is a gateway drug exists. However, the same is said of alcohol, which means marijuana is not the gateway drug but rather a possible gateway drug.

A Gateway Isn’t Always a Drug

The gateway to addiction isn’t always a drug. It’s a complex mix of risk factors. While using an addictive substance most certainly contributes, it’s not the only factor that leads to substance abuse and addiction. You might compare it to the superstition that black cats are bad luck, something we all know today isn’t factual.

It’s easy to blame a drug for addiction. It’s hard to recognize the many factors that create a gateway to it. It’s even harder to change those factors on an individual (and society) basis, but until we do, we’ll never gain headway in the war on addiction. In the big picture, the “war on drugs” is really just a single battle in the fight against the epidemic of substance abuse and addiction.