It’s been said before that marijuana is the gateway drug to other drugs, but how much more is this the case for teens?
According to a study, teenagers who smoke marijuana are twenty six times more likely to use other drugs and are also three times at greater risk of becoming harmful drinkers.
The study, conducted by Bristol University and published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, is now according to the University definitive proof that cannabis is a gateway drug.
In the study, experts looked at more than 5,300 teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 and found that the marijuana users were also 37 times more likely to become cigarette smokers as adults. The study found that one in five in the trial was a regular weed smoker.
Around one in five teens in the trial were found to smoke weed often.
Dr. Michelle Taylor from the School of Social and Community Medicine, who was the lead researcher, said, “We have added further evidence that suggests adolescent cannabis use does predict later problematic substance use in early adulthood.
“We tend to see clusters of different forms of substance misuse in adolescents and young people, and it has been argued that cannabis acts as a gateway to other drug use. However, historically the evidence has been inconsistent.
“I think the most important findings from this study are that one in five adolescents follow a pattern of occasional or regular cannabis use and that those individuals are more likely to be tobacco dependent, have harmful levels of alcohol consumption or use other illicit drugs in early adulthood,” she went on to say.
According to Ian Hamilton, a lecturer in Mental Health at the University of York, “This study adds to the evidence that cannabis acts as a ‘gateway’ to nicotine dependence, as the majority of people using cannabis in the UK combine tobacco with cannabis when they roll a joint.”
He concluded, “This research suggests that adolescent cannabis use serves as a ‘gateway’ to a harmful relationship with drugs as an adult.”
