Marijuana is not the Gateway Drug

The myth of the gateway drug has been determined not by statistics that are incorrect but by the wrong statistics. The Partnership for a Drug-Free America, in cooperation with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the White House Office of Drug Control Policy released the "Gateway Drug" theory as a campaign against Marijuana. They state that marijuana users are 85 times more likely than non-marijuana users to try cocaine. We need to look at how they came up with this Statistic. The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse taken in 1991 is useless when it comes to the statistic on Marijuana users likelihood of using "Hard" drugs. It was calculated by dividing the proportion of marijuana users who have ever used cocaine (17%) by the proportion of cocaine users who have never used marijuana (.2%). The high risk-factor obtained is a product not of the fact that so many marijuana users use cocaine but that so many cocaine users used marijuana previously. When you think about it, Marijuana is the most common illicit drug for many decades so chances are that a user of a less popular drug has tried a more popular drug. This goes for even more popular drugs as well, for example most cocaine users also smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol. Now my opinion on legalization of marijuana will also cut down on use of other drugs. I do believe that there are a lot of users that started off with Marijuana and because of the way they have to go about getting marijuana they come in contact with hard drugs like cocaine and heroin. Because of my stance on Marijuana but do not have experience with it illegally I have talked to a few people in the Marijuana crowd. I have heard certain things that encourage my belief that legalization of the substance. I was talking to a Marijuana dealer. He was explaining to me that he loves dealing with marijuana because he has never had to deal with weapons when taking the product to his customers. He does however deal with other substances where weapons were required and shown as a threat. When he is dealing with customers of the other substances he is always worried about it "going bad" He also told me that when ever he deals with his marijuana customers he offers them the high profit drugs. If a marijuana user was able to buy this substance legally they would not be put in the situation that they are being offered harder drugs.