Drug War v. Science

Who do you think the winner is?

The “gateway drug” hypothesis has taken another blow (ahem). A recent study finding that adolescent rats given THC were no more likely than a control group to become addicted to heroin. Although the THC group took stronger doses of heroin, based on this study there appears to be no physiological basis for a connection between marijuana use and later heroin. Of course, the biggest reason there might be a connection in real life (which is very small, even if there is one, with 97 million Americans having tried marijuana versus only 3 million having tried heroin) is that buying pot puts you in contact with the kind of people who sell heroin.

[Tangentially: the oft-debunked “gateway drug” thing is bogus for many more reasons, too. A link between trying pot and trying so-called harder drugs would be completely expected, since people who try pot are exactly the type of people who might be willing to try heroin (or whatever). To repeat an overused phrase, correlation does not imply causation. If you lack the rebelliousness to even smoke marijuana, it’s unlikely you’ll stick a needle in your arm for a hit of heroin.]

Plus, another study has found that no link between smoking pot and cancer, even among very heavy users. The likely reason: even smoking a pack of cigarettes a day leads to very small increases in cancer risk (which honestly surprised me, and sure puts the “smoking will kill you” theory in an uncomfortable place), as the big jump in cancer seems to kick in at around 2 packs a day. And to get as much cancer-causing chemicals as are found in two packs of cigarettes, you’d have to smoke more than 10 joints a day, a level beyond all but the most chronic users. Marijuana’s cancer-fighting agents no doubt also play a role.

Give up, Drug War. You’re losing, and you’re hurting millions of innocent people in the process.