[acb-hsp] Another Marijuana Myth Bites the Dust

[peter altschul]

Another Marijuana Myth Bites the Dust--The Real Gateway Drug is 
Alcohol
  Stephen C.  Webster, Raw Story July 9, 2012
  A study in the August edition of The Journal of School Health 
finds that the generations old theory of a "gateway drug" effect 
is in fact accurate, but shifts the blame for escalating 
substance abuse away from marijuana and onto the most pervasive 
and socially accepted drug in American life: alcohol.



Using a nationally representative sample from the University of 
Michigan's annual Monitoring the Future survey the study blasts 
holes in drug war orthodoxy wide enough to drive a truck through, 
definitively proving that marijuana use is not the primary 
indicator of whether a person will move on to more dangerous 
substances.
  "By delaying the onset of alcohol initiation, rates of both 
elicit substance abuse like tobacco and illicit substance use 
like marijuana and other drugs will be positively affected, and 
they'll hopefully go down," study co-author Adam E.  Barry, an 
assistant professor at the University of Florida's Department of 
Health Education and Behavior, told Raw Story in an exclusive 
interview.
  While Barry's study shows evidence that substance abuse 
behaviors can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy by 
examining a subject's drug history, he believes that the 
persistent and misguided notion of marijuana as the primary 
gateway to more harmful substances went awry because its creators 
-- who called it the "Stepping Stone Hypothesis" in the "Reefer 
Madness" era of the 1930's -- fundamentally misread the data and 
failed to conduct an adequate follow-up.
  "Some of these earlier iterations needed to be fleshed out," 
Barry said.  "That's why we wanted to study this.  The latest 
form of the gateway theory is that it begins with [marijuana] and 
moves on finally to what laypeople often call `harder drugs.` As 
you can see from the findings of our study, it confirmed this 
gateway hypothesis, but it follows progression from elicit 
substances, specifically alcohol, and moves on to illicit 
substances."
  "So, basically, if we know what someone says with regards to 
their alcohol use, then we should be able to predict what they 
respond to with other [drugs]," he explained.  "Another way to 
say it is, if we know someone has done [the least prevalent drug] 
heroin, then we can assume they have tried all the others."
  And while that standardized progression certainly doesn't fit 
every single drug user, the study took that into account too.  
"There were a low enough number of errors that you are able to 
accurately predict [future substance abuse ...  with about 92 
percent accuracy," Barry said.
  By comparing substance abuse rates between drinkers and 
non-drinkers, they ultimately found that seniors in high school 
who had consumed alcohol at least once in their lives "were 13 
times more likely to use cigarettes, 16 times more likely to use 
marijuana and other narcotics, and 13 times more likely to use 
cocaine."
  Barry also noted that the rates of tobacco and marijuana use 
among all 12th grade high school students were virtually the 
same, confirming a report the Centers for Disease Control 
published in June and an analysis Raw Story published in May
  The study should give pause to anyone involved in youth drug 
awareness programs, as its findings suggest that making 
science-based alcohol education a top priority could actually 
turn the tide of the drug war -- but only if lawmakers and 
leading educators decide to use that same science as a foundation 
for public policy and school curriculum.
  "I think [these results] have to do with level of access 
children have to alcohol, and that alcohol is viewed as less 
harmful than some of these other substances," Barry added.
  That social misconception, largely driven by the sheer 
popularity of alcohol and the profits it generates for private 
industry, is diametrically opposed to the most current science 
available on drug harms.  A study published in 2010 in the 
medical journal Lancet ranked alcohol as the most harmful drug of 
all, above heroin, crack, meth, cocaine and tobacco.  Even more 
striking: The Lancet study found that harms to others near the 
user were more than double those of the second most harmful drug, 
heroin.
  "This is a time of budget tightening," Barry concluded.  "Many 
social services are being cut.  If you take [our findings] and 
apply them to a school health setting, we believe that you are 
going to get the best bang for your buck by focusing on alcohol."
  Stephen C.  Webster is the senior editor of Raw Story, and is 
based out of Austin, Texas.  He previously worked as the 
associate editor of The Lone Star Iconoclast in Crawford, Texas, 
where he covered state politics and the peace movement's 
resurgence at the start of the Iraq war.  Webster has also 
contributed to publications such as TruestSlant, Austin Monthly, 
The Dallas Business Journal, The Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth 
Weekly, The News Connection and others.
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