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Bringing the Gateway Theory Back - Nature hypes study on twelve rats
Maia Szalavitz STATS at George Mason University
Thursday 06 Jul 2006 Nature hypes study on twelve rats News @ Nature — the news affiliate of one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, which tags itself as providing “the best in science journalism” — is not usually a source of drug war propaganda. But this week, in covering a new study on the effects of marijuana on the brain, it sure sounded like one. The story was purportedly about research on rats which found that those given marijuana during the period roughly equivalent to human adolescence tended to take larger doses of heroin when given access to that drug later in life. It’s an interesting finding and could add to our knowledge of how exposure to one drug can affect responses to other drugs. But Nature covered the study of just 12 rats as though it gives important support to the long-discredited idea that marijuana acts as a “gateway” drug, causing users who start “just smoking pot” to rapidly turn into heroin injectors or cocaine smokers. News @ Nature said: “ Neuroscientists have found that rats are more likely to get hooked on heroin if they have previously been given cannabis. The studies suggest a biological mechanism — at least in rats — for the much-publicized effect of cannabis as a 'gateway' to harder drugs.” But the article did not note that the problem with the “gateway theory” is that the vast majority of cannabis users never try harder drugs. While most illegal drug users start with the most widely available illegal drug — marijuana — most marijuana users start and stop with cannabis. Some 50 percent of high school students try marijuana before graduation, but just eight percent try cocaine, six percent try methamphetamine and less than one percent try heroin. This is why the Institute of Medicine, in a 1999 report on the use of marijuana as medicine, gave no credence to the gateway idea. And while the article said that cannabis use might similarly predispose to amphetamine or cocaine use, it did not mention that the same authors had previously published a study finding no such effect with amphetamine. Further, News @ Nature sure made both the researchers and the reporter covering the study sound far from disinterested and unbiased. The article quoted one of the study’s authors as saying that policies softening the law on cannabis were “ridiculous” in light of the existing evidence, and closed with the following: “The discovery also warns against complacency that cannabis does not have any lasting effect in young people who use the drug. ‘Lots of mothers say 'oh well, at least it's not cocaine’, [the researcher] says. But this is not about the short-term effects. For adults to do it is one thing, but we have to consider the effects on children." Let’s see: For the last 40 years or so we’ve run an uncontrolled experiment exposing at least half of the America’s teenagers to cannabis. Obviously, it would be better if teenagers didn’t take the risk of exposing themselves to any psychoactive substances. However, so far, no one has found any effects on mortality, there is no link with lung cancer, there are no deaths from overdosing, cognitive effects are minimal once the drug has worn off in all but the heaviest of users, and rates of use of cannabis and other drugs have waxed and waned over time. This scientist may believe her kids to be equally at risk when trying cannabis or cocaine — but she sure isn’t basing this belief on data. This is an interesting, but preliminary study which should be covered; but it shouldn’t be covered not without context. http://www.stats.org/stories/bringing_gateway_jul06_06.htm
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