Beer, tobacco and marijuana – gateway drugs

The most shocking thing is that alcohol and tobacco are considered by many to be “gateway” drugs, as are inhalants and marijuana. Simply put, that means that drinking alcohol or smoking tobacco is widely considered a “gateway” to using harder drugs. And yes, alcohol is a drug as is nicotine addiction.

In a recent study released by Columbia University’s Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA), it was reported that children aged 12 to 17 who use gateway drugs – alcohol, tobacco and marijuana, are up to 266 times more likely to use cocaine than those who don’t use any gateway drugs.

Compared with people who used only one gateway drug, children who used all three are 77 times more likely to use cocaine.

“An increasing number of American children and teens believe there is little risk in chugging a beer or smoking a tobacco or marijuana cigarette,” says Joseph A. Califano, Jr., CASA’s president and former Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW).

“This report is a wakeup call to encourage parents to discourage their children from drinking or smoking and for governors and mayors to enforce the laws prohibiting the sale of cigarettes, beer, wine coolers and other alcoholic beverages to minors,” says Mr. Califano.

The popularity of energy drinks mixed with alcohol is based on the drinker’s fallacy that mixing energy drinks with booze makes for an increased ability to party all night, says James Mosher, a Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation alcohol policy expert.

While the Acting Surgeon General’s Call to Action to help stop kids from drinking fills our papers, alarm is being raised by parents and alcohol experts who claim that some alcohol manufacturers are producing products that will encourage young drinking.

While there are those who might refute the “gateway” drug theory, and I’m sure not all young drinkers gravitate to more dangerous drugs, my experiences in the teen rehab world my son and I inhabited for a while supported the “gateway” theory. Of the over 430 families involved, some with multiple children enrolled, a majority of the young clients said they used drugs after drinking beer and/or smoking tobacco or marijuana.

Why are beer, tobacco and marijuana smoking considered gateways to harder drugs?

Well, it’s pretty simple. First, as children and young adults drink more and more, their levels of tolerance increase. They need more and more alcohol to get the same “high.” Then, seeking even higher “highs”, more oblivion, more self medication, they seek stronger drugs for stronger results. Most teenagers and young adults I knew as a host parent had morphed from alcoholics to drug addicts for that reason. They needed stronger drugs to get the same – or more potent – “highs”.

As for tobacco, it’s considered “cool” to smoke in many schools. It’s cheap, it’s believed to calm the nerves (until your blood sugar takes a dive whereupon you go into withdrawal and hey, help, I need more nicotine!) and it’s, like beer or wine coolers, relatively cheap. Smoking nicotine cigarettes helps the smoker convince himself or herself that there isn’t much difference between smoking tobacco and smoking marijuana. Then the same distorted rationality moves onward and it becomes “easier to get high” on cocaine, “hash” or whatever.

And here’s the shocker, folks. One third of the teens and nearly half of the 17-year olds surveyed in CASA’s National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse XI: Teens and Parents’ Study reported that they attend house parties where parents are present and there is drinking, smoking marijuana or using cocaine, Ecstacy, or prescription drugs going on at that party.