CBC News

Friday 03 Sep 2010

Long-held fears that the use of marijuana will lead to harder drugs
are overblown, according to new research from the University of New
Hampshire.

The research, in the September issue of the Journal of Health and
Social Behavior, found that other factors, such as whether or not a
person has a job, or is facing severe stress, are far more predictive
of future hard drug use than whether they smoked pot as a teenager.

"Employment in young adulthood can protect people by closing the
marijuana gateway, so over-criminalizing youth marijuana use might
create more serious problems if it interferes with later employment
opportunities," said co-author Karen Van Gundy.

The strongest factor influencing the use of illicit drugs is an
individual's race or ethnicity, according to the study. Non-Hispanic
whites are most likely to use harder drugs such as heroin or cocaine,
followed by Hispanics and then by African Americans.

Young adults who didn't complete high school or go to college were
most likely to have used marijuana as teens and other illicit drugs in
early adulthood. Those who were unemployed after high school were also
more likely to use other drugs.

"In light of these findings, we urge U.S. drug control policymakers
to consider stress and life-course approaches in their pursuit of
solutions to the drug problems," write the study's authors, Van Gundy
and Cesar Rebellon, both associate professors of sociology at UNH.

The researchers also found that any gateway effect that does exist
with marijuana disappears once young adults reach 21.

"While marijuana use may serve as a gateway to other illicit drug use
in adolescence, our results indicate that the effect may be
short-lived," note the authors.

"Interestingly, age emerges as a protective status above and beyond
the other life statuses and conditions considered here."

The researchers followed 1,286 young adults who attended Miami-Dade
public schools in the 1990s. Twenty-six per cent were African
American, 44 per cent Hispanic and 30 per cent non-Hispanic white.

Read more:
http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2010/09/02/con-marijuana-
gateway.html#ixzz0ySFvsN6b




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