Marijuana Use and Heroin Addiction: The Gateway Drug Theory – the Terrible Truth (1951)

DVD: www.amazon.com thefilmarchive.org The gateway drug theory (also called gateway theory, gateway hypothesis and gateway effect) is the hypothesis that the use of less deleterious drugs may lead to a future risk of using more dangerous hard drugs and/or crime. It is often attributed to the use of several drugs, including tobacco, alcohol, black coffee and cannabis. While some research shows that many hard drug users used cannabis or alcohol before moving on to the harder substances, other research shows that some serious drug abusers have used other drugs before using cannabis or alcohol. The former is particularly evident in individual drug-abuse histories which tend to show that “hard drug” users do progress from one drug to another. Several different hypotheses have been called “gateway” theories in popular discourse. These include (but are not limited to): * The gateway substance causes users to be at increased risk for abuse of other substances. * The gateway substance primes the brain for addiction to other substances (independent of becoming more likely to try other substances). * A rigid sequence of progression, starting with illicit drugs followed by (increasingly dangerous) illicit ones. * The gateway effect is pharmacological, rather than socially constructed. Some scientific studies show that the consumption of cannabis can possibly predict a significant higher risk for the subsequent use of other “harder” illicit drugs, while other studies show that it …