Is Marijuana A Gateway Drug?
Marijuana is one of the most easily available illegal drugs today. People usually start taking drugs for the purpose of recreation, or under peer pressure/depression. The beginning of this phase usually begins from Marijuana because of its availability and convenience. Despite being illegal in many countries, its sale is on the rise. These drugs have influenced a big section of the society especially the teenagers.
It’s often precepted that Marijuana is not that hard or bad, but it’s addictive and excess consumption of it can lead to severe health problems. The main reason why Marijuana performs as a gateway is that in many surveys it was found that in most cases marijuana is found that it is the starting drug for any person. And further suggested that it depends more on the psychology of the individual.
The fact here is that most of the consumers in India are young teenagers and early adults. The generation of impulsivity, aggressiveness and peers find these things more attention seeking and addictive.
Also, it is assumed that after intaking marijuana, individuals don’t move to a higher degree of drugs. But the people who get used to it after a while try to discover something else. Once, the people get addicted to these things they tend to give an attempt on other drugs which they haven’t tried yet. This psychology of people makes them shift from marijuana to more harmful and hard drugs like LSD, heroin, cocaine etc.
According to the gateway drug theory marijuana is likely to be used before advancing to ‘harder’ drugs such as opioids. This may be because trying drugs like marijuana increases the taste (and perceived pleasure) for other drugs, leading to further experimentation.
Some previous reports have said that the debate on marijuana being a gateway is never-ending. But experts have always said that using one such kind of drug will always be leading to furthermore experimentation and denoted this as a part of human tendency.
According to a report of National Institute on Drug Abuse, factors like social environment and people around also prove to be a big factor behind the promotion of consumers from Marijuana to other harder stuff like cocaine, opioids etc. While on the other hand Psychology Today says that it depends more on the inner wants and desires. Further, there are many more reports with no substantive findings on whether marijuana is a gateway drug or not.
With researchers failing to prove marijuana as a gateway drug, the simple answer on its property of a gateway drug varies based on the psychology and the ideology of the individuals.
