Marijuana: A gateway drug after all?

The fact that marijuana use has increased may be the least of our troubles.

(Image credit: Corbis)

last updated 8 January 2015

Illegal drug use has risen to the highest level in nearly a decade, according to a federal government study released last week. The uptick in overall illicit drug use was "driven in large part by the use of marijuana" and a broadening public perception that the drug isn't harmful, the report says. "The results of the survey, to say the least, are very troubling," Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said at a press conference Thursday. Is marijuana really the gateway drug the government claims it to be? (Watch a CNN report about "marijuana ice cream")

The goverment gets it wrong again: It's not that marijuana is a gateway drug, says Joe Klare in The 420 Times. It's that "there are no jobs, bills are piling up, and everything costs too much," so people are turning to drugs to help "them feel good about life again." So don't believe the misinformation that people are "going on to harder drugs" — that's just the government's "spin."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

The statistics prove pot isn't a gateway drug: The only significant increase in drug use "came from the growing ranks of pot smokers," says John Cloud in Time. Cocaine use actually dropped, abuse of prescription drugs "has been flat since 2007," and even "the rate at which we use methamphetamine" has gone "unchanged." Aside from the fact that "smoking anything isn't good for your lungs," pot's only confirmed adverse effect is that it "can get you arrested."

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox