Alcohol
Both alcohol and tobacco tend to precede cannabis use, and it is rare for those who use hard drugs to not have used alcohol or tobacco first. Data from the 2005 National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) in the United States found that, compared with lifetime nondrinkers, adults who have consumed alcohol were statistically much more likely to currently use illicit drugs and/or abuse prescription drugs in the past year. Effects were strongest for cocaine (26 times more likely), cannabis (14 times more likely), and psychedelics (13 times more likely). In addition, lifetime drinkers were also six times more likely to use or be dependent on illicit drugs than lifetime nondrinkers.
As with cannabis, this correlation does not, however, necessarily mean that alcohol is a gateway drug (i.e. a causal relationship). In addition, whether one tries alcohol or cannabis first before the other does not accurately predict later substance use disorders.
One study found that, in the United States, raising the drinking age to 21 in the 1980s was correlated with an increase in cannabis use among high school seniors, the opposite of what the gateway theory would predict. This suggests that the two substances are substitutes rather than complements. Interestingly, state decriminalization of cannabis did not predict an increase in cannabis use; rather, it predicted a mild decrease in both alcohol and cannabis use. Higher alcohol prices, however, appeared to reduce the use of both substances, suggesting at least partial complementarity (though not necessarily a gateway).
Read more about this topic: Gateway Drug Theory
Famous quotes containing the word alcohol:
“Two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“[T]ea, that uniquely English meal, that unnecessary collation at which no stimulants—neither alcohol nor meat—are served, that comforting repast of which to partake is as good as second childhood.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)