As marijuana continues to become legal in states across the country, some are looking to see what the widespread and long-lasting effects of it will be: Is the old adage true that it's really a 'gateway drug?'
The American Addiction Centers reported that some who use it end up using other substances too, like cocaine, methamphetamine, and prescription opioids. But that number is very, very low. So, if it's a gateway, the door is only ajar for a small percentage of the population.
The report found that Americans were trying substances sooner in life than ever before, with 47.5% saying they first tried marijuana in high school and 28.9% first tried it in college. And trends are changing along time, too. Over 23 percent of respondents born in the 1970s tried tobacco first, and 10 percent used marijuana.
While people born in the ’90s most often used marijuana first -- almost 22 percent. "Perhaps this is why a majority of Americans now approve of legalizing marijuana, despite the risk of anxiety, depression, hallucinations, and paranoia," the Addiction Centers found.
Ronal Serpas, a professor of practice in the department of criminal justice at Loyola and the former New Orleans Police Chief, joined Audacy to share more on the substance and its gateway potential.
Serpas said research would probably show support for arguments that marijuana is a gateway drug and shouldn't be legal for that reason, but he doesn't agree. He says that even if every state made it legal, the overall effect of that wouldn't matter much.
With alcohol already being legal and users being reckless with it, Serpas says like other substances, what matters more is how people use it in the first place.
He says it's is the same for marijuana and alcohol when it comes to whether users branch into narcotics, opioids and other drugs.
“Part of this is that problems come up when people can’t control the urges for narcotics or alcoholic influences,” Serpas said.
The professor went on to share that legalizing the substance also adds a bit of safety for users, who have to deal with shopkeepers when they want to argue about prices instead of criminals with guns.
“There’s an old saying that cops know if you walk up on a drug deal on a street corner, there is a gun someplace. People don’t buy and sell drugs illegally on a street corner without a gun,” he said.
The American Addiction Centers found that 97% of users reported alcohol, tobacco, or weed being the first substance they used, and there is a major drop in users who branched out to other narcotics afterward. That's to say trying alcohol, tobacco or pot made very few people branch out to crack or MDMA or meth.
Still, there was a group who made the jump.
The Addiction Center report found that the substance people most often tried fourth, after alcohol, tobacco and marijuana, was opioids. About 7 percent of people tried opioids as their 'second option', while 3.4% percent leapt to stimulants, and 2 percent to meth or heroin.