News » The Gateway Drug Is Not What You’ve Been Told





New research from the University of Buffalo shows that marijuana, long touted as the “gateway drug” into the ugly world of illicit drug abuse, is not really the “gateway drug of choice.” The real evildoer?

Prescription pain medications.

That’s right. The study found that 41% of patients admitted for detoxification told their doctors that they had become addicted to street drugs after being prescribed legal opiates (methadone, oxycodone, and so forth). A whopping 92% of those in the study indicated that these prescription drugs had led them to street drugs.

The majority of patients in the study had taken opoids for pain following an injury or surgery, using the drugs legitimately with a prescription. Doctors would rarely question when asked for a renewal on the prescription, though eventually they had to cut the patient off because of federal regulations regarding opoid prescription practices. This often led the patients to seek alternatives and those alternatives were often street drugs such as heroin.

So it seems that marijuana is not the “gateway drug” opponents to its legalization like to claim it is.

[source Natural News]

Tags: gateway drug, medical