Many young adults remember their childhood participation in Drug Abuse Resistance Education, better known by the acronym D.A.R.E. One of the program's core messages is that marijuana is a "gateway" to all sorts of other substances. D.A.R.E's effectiveness was later called into question, and its curriculum overhauled, but the legend remains. The scientist who coined the "gateway" termrecently came out with a new paper showing that it's actually nicotine that is, biologically, the most potent of gateway of all.

Scientists and politicians still debate whether using “soft” drugs necessarily leads a person down a slippery slope to the harder stuff. Critics note that marijuana has, in some cases, been shown to actually prevent people from abusing other substances. But new research is breathing fresh life into the perennially controversial theory, and the timing seems apt. As marijuana legalization and the opioid epidemic sweep across the country, parents are once again questioning the root causes of addiction. And politicians opposed to legalization, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, have routinely used the gateway effect as their chief argument against reform.

There is a growing body of evidence to support the use of medical cannabis as an adjunct to or substitute for prescription opiates in the treatment of chronic pain. When used in conjunction with opiates, cannabinoids lead to a greater cumulative relief of pain, resulting in a reduction in the use of opiates (and associated side-effects) by patients in a clinical setting. Additionally, cannabinoids can prevent the development of tolerance to and withdrawal from opiates, and can even rekindle opiate analgesia after a prior dosage has become ineffective.

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Does smoking reefer lead to using other drugs, in daily practice usually described as cocaine and heroin? Raising the possibility that the answer to this question might be affirmative, is known as the stepping stone hypothesis. Recently this hypothesis has been raised again in slightly other terms: cannabis use as a “gateway” to other allegedly more dangerous drugs.

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Does smoking reefer lead to using other drugs, in daily practice usually described as cocaine and heroin? Raising the possibility that the answer to this question might be affirmative, is known as the stepping stone hypothesis. Recently this hypothesis has been raised again in slightly other terms: cannabis use as a “gateway” to other allegedly more dangerous drugs.

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An ethnographic study of women and drug use in inner city neighborhoods in Kingston, Jamaica, revealed that cannabis is commonly used in conjunction with crack cocaine to minimize the undesirable effects of crack pipe smoking, specifically paranoia and weight loss.

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An ethnographic study of women and drug use in inner city neighborhoods in Kingston, Jamaica, revealed that cannabis is commonly used in conjunction with crack cocaine to minimize the undesirable effects of crack pipe smoking, specifically paranoia and weight loss.

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The prohibition on dagga is the "gateway to harder drug use‚ not the use of cannabis itself"‚ Imperial College Professor David Nutt told the Pretoria High Court. Nutt‚ a psychiatrist and neuropharmacologist is testifying in the trial to have the current ban on dagga use ruled unconstitutional. Johannesburg residents Jules Stobbs and Myrtle Clarke are asking the Pretoria High Court to deem the laws banning the adult use and sale of dagga unconstitutional and thus instruct parliament to make new laws. "The gateway theory is a theory that has very‚ very little in the way of empirical evidence‚" Nutt said. (See also: Is the state trying to lose the dagga case?)

Consuming cannabis every day could delay at-risk youth from moving on to injecting more dangerous drugs, according to a new study that casts doubt upon the age-old assumption that marijuana acts as a gateway for teens to try other more harmful substances. The research, from scientists at the BC Centre on Substance Use, also adds to other work that has suggested marijuana could be used as a substitute for people addicted to opioids. Researchers repeatedly interviewed 481 homeless young people in Vancouver’s downtown core who had never injected any drugs and found - over a decade of tracking this at-risk cohort - that daily cannabis use was associated with a 34 per cent decrease in the rate people started injecting drugs.

Cannabis is the cutting-edge drug for reform, the only politically plausible candidate for major legal change, at least decriminalisation (removal of criminal penalties for possession) and perhaps even outright legalisation (permitting production and sale). Compared with other drugs, the harms, physiological or behavioural, are less severe and the drug is better integrated into the culture. Throughout Western Europe and in the Antipodes there is pressure for reductions in the punitiveness of the marijuana regime.

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Cannabis is the cutting-edge drug for reform, the only politically plausible candidate for major legal change, at least decriminalisation (removal of criminal penalties for possession) and perhaps even outright legalisation (permitting production and sale). Compared with other drugs, the harms, physiological or behavioural, are less severe and the drug is better integrated into the culture. Throughout Western Europe and in the Antipodes there is pressure for reductions in the punitiveness of the marijuana regime.

Download the paper (PDF)

"The war on drugs has failed," said a recent report compiled by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which comprised a former UN secretary-general, former presidents of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, a former US Secretary of State and a host of public intellectuals, human rights activists and politicians.

Kevin Abraham Sabet-Sharghi, Ph.D., aka Kevin Sabet, has been a headline-grabbing right-winger ever since his U.C. Berkeley days—where he did not study science or medicine despite his current appointment as an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Florida. His most recent incarnation as a co-founder of Project SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana) follows a stint in the Obama White House on its drug policy staff from 2009-2011. His personal website claims he is the “quarterback” of a new anti-drug movement, boasting that he’s been “quoted in over 15,000 news stories.”

K2 overdoses in Brooklyn sent 33 people to hospital. The rise of K2 could be fueled by a twist on the "gateway drug" theory: it’s not marijuana use, but marijuana criminalization, that could lead many to turn to synthetic cannabinoids. Just like marijuana activists are championing studies that suggest cannabis reforms could lead to decreased heroin and opioid use, stopping the spread of K2 could become a rallying point for the marijuana movement. As Adam Winstock, a consultant psychiatrist and founder of the Global Drug Survey put it, "In some regions, it could be the best argument for legalization in quite some time."

In the past few years, the number of monthly marijuana users in America has steadily risen, from 14.4m in 2007 to 18.9m in 2012. If marijuana were a gateway to harder drugs, one might expect those drugs to become more popular too. Yet during the same period, consumption of most other substances actually fell. The number of monthly cocaine users dipped from 2.1m to 1.7m and the number of people using methamphetamine fell from 530,000 to 440,000. Heroin use has been going up, but the gateway drug there seems to be prescription painkillers.

Of all the arguments that have been used to demonize marijuana, few have been more powerful than that of the "gateway effect": the notion that while marijuana itself may not be especially dangerous, it ineluctably leads to harder drugs like heroin and cocaine. Scientists abandoned the idea: as far back as 1999, in a report commissioned by Congress to look at the possible dangers of medical marijuana, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences wrote: "There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs."

Proponents of marijuana prohibition have long alleged that experimentation with pot acts as a “gateway” to the use and eventual abuse of other illicit substances. But the results of a just released national poll finds that most Americans no longer believe this claim to be true. According to survey data compiled by YouGov.com, fewer than one in three US citizens agree with the statement, “the use of marijuana leads to the use of hard drugs.” Among those respondents under the age of 65, fewer than one in four agree.

Marijuana may not be the "gateway drug" some believe it to be, a new study contends. Instead, teens smoke pot for very specific reasons, and it is those reasons that appear to prompt their decision to try other drugs, researchers report. For example, kids who use marijuana because they are bored are more likely to also use cocaine, while kids using pot to achieve insight or understanding are more likely to try magic mushrooms, according to findings published recently in the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse.

As the 2016 election approaches, marijuana legalization is in the air once again, with ballot initiatives likely to succeed in at least five states, including California. As usual, politicians – including some presidential candidates – are trying to turn back the tide by spreading fear that weed is a gateway to more dangerous drugs. But research increasingly shows not only that the "gateway" theory is incorrect, but that weed may actually help people with addictions stop taking other drugs, rather than start.

As more and more jurisdictions reconsider their cannabis policies, the public discourse is filled with conflicting evidence about the impacts of cannabis use and regulation. Cannabis causes schizophrenia. Cannabis is as addictive as heroin. Cannabis regulation leads to increased traffic fatalities. We hear claims like these all the time – but are they based on science? In our latest reports, the ICSDP investigates and provides comprehensive evaluations of the evidence for and against each claim.

Download the report (PDF) | Cannabis claims website