TRUST BUT VERIFY

The drug war rests on a bed of lies. From time to time, new studies
come out which are claimed by drug warriors to support one or another
myth. Sometimes, getting to the truth is relatively easy.

By now people have heard of the just-published report in JAMA
regarding 'gateway theory' and cannabis use.

(it's available free from JAMA at
http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v289n4/rfull/joc21156.html).

Many media outlets are reporting the research as showing that cannabis
use at an early age leads to use of hard drugs later on. There's a
good deal less -- and more -- to the study than has been reported so
far, at least in the US.

The data is not at issue here. That the surveys were conducted in
Australia may actually make the survey results on which the study was
based more legit -- Australia has a long history of social research,
and cannabis use is arguably less stigmatized there than, for example,
in the US (no phony 'buying a joint supports Al Qaeda' ads in the land
down under).

Rather than the data, the concerns boil down to:

1. The impact of early onset of tobacco or alcohol use was *not*
examined in this study. They do note that early use of tobacco or
alcohol was a strong indicator of later problem use of other drugs
(that is, illegal drugs other than cannabis), however the question of
whether tobacco or alcohol could be the mythic 'gateway' drug is never
examined. (One way of putting this is: If you don't get concerned
about kids' drug use until they try pot, you're already too late.)

"While covariates differed between equations, early regular use of
tobacco and alcohol emerged as the 2 factors most consistently
associated with later illicit drug use and abuse/dependence. While
early regular alcohol use did not emerge as a significant independent
predictor of alcohol dependence, this finding should be treated with
considerable caution, as our study did not provide an optimal strategy
for assessing the effects of early alcohol use."

This is significant because other research has similarly shown a
strong correlation between early onset of alcohol and tobacco use and
later use of other drugs and problem drug use. Significant and
worrisome, because this points toward a possible bias in the research
against cannabis (and, by default and certainly unintentionally,
seemingly in favor of alcohol).

2. The report's conclusions are being ignored-instead, the spin in
the mainstream US media is the researcher's original, still-unproven
hypothesis about cannabis being a gateway drug. In the article itself,
the authors suggest that the association between cannabis use and
other illegal drugs may simply be due to marijuana being illegal in
the US. In support of this, the authors note that the Netherlands
policy of separating soft from hard drugs has been successful.

"3. Alternatively, experience with and subsequent access to cannabis
use may provide individuals with access to other drugs as they come
into contact with drug dealers. This argument provided a strong
impetus for the Netherlands to effectively decriminalize cannabis use
in an attempt to separate cannabis from the hard drug market. This
strategy may have been partially successful as rates of cocaine use
among those who have used cannabis are lower in the Netherlands than
in the United States."

Let's face it: Mass news media are not great vehicles for
communicating scientific or medical research, especially when a story
is being spun by the feds to support a bad policy. It's important to
go to the source to find out the full story. Trust, but verify.

(One place to look for more information is www.DrugWarDistortions.org.
Common Sense for Drug Policy created www.DrugWarDistortions.org to
specifically refute these drug war myths. We hope that it will prove
as useful as its sister site, www.DrugWarFacts.org, has proven itself
to be.)

The full article is available free from the Journal at
http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v289n4/rfull/joc21156.html

They have this to say about early use of alcohol and
tobacco:

"While covariates differed between equations, early regular use of
tobacco and alcohol emerged as the 2 factors most consistently
associated with later illicit drug use and abuse/ dependence. While
early regular alcohol use did not emerge as a significant independent
predictor of alcohol dependence, this finding should be treated with
considerable caution, as our study did not provide an optimal strategy
for assessing the effects of early alcohol use."

The study concludes:

"If the association with early cannabis use is indeed causal, the
mechanisms by which this association arises remain unclear.
Pharmacological mechanisms might be hypothesized in which it is
assumed that exposure to cannabis induces subtle biochemical changes
that encourage drug-taking behavior. This hypothesis is supported to
some extent by recent findings that 9-tetrahydrocannabinol and heroin
have similar effects on dopamine transmission through a common
u1opioid receptor mechanism and that chronic treatment with
9-tetrahydrocannabinol induces cross-tolerance to amphetamine and
opioids in rats. However, an argument against such biological
hypotheses is that the levels of cannabis use at the beginning of
drug-using careers are substantially lower than the equivalents used
in laboratory-based research and perhaps too low to induce long-term
biochemical changes.

Other mechanisms that might mediate a causal association between early
cannabis use and subsequent drug use and drug abuse/dependence include
the following:

1. Initial experiences with cannabis, which are frequently rated as
pleasurable, may encourage continued use of cannabis and also
broader experimentation.

2. Seemingly safe early experiences with cannabis may reduce the
perceived risk of, and therefore barriers to, the use of other drugs.
For example, as the vast majority of those who use cannabis do not
experience any legal consequences of their use, such use may act to
diminish the strength of legal sanctions against the use of all drugs.

3. Alternatively, experience with and subsequent access to cannabis
use may provide individuals with access to other drugs as they come
into contact with drug dealers. This argument provided a strong
impetus for the Netherlands to effectively decriminalize cannabis use
in an attempt to separate cannabis from the hard drug market. This
strategy may have been partially successful as rates of cocaine use
among those who have used cannabis are lower in the Netherlands than
in the United States.

While the findings of this study indicate that early cannabis use is
associated with increased risks of progression to other illicit drug
use and drug abuse/dependence, it is not possible to draw strong
causal conclusions solely on the basis of the associations shown in
this study.