Gateway Drug Theory - Tobacco

Tobacco

According to the NIDA, "People who abuse drugs are also likely to be cigarette smokers. More than two-thirds of drug abusers are regular tobacco smokers, a rate more than triple that of the rest of the population." One study found that cannabis use varies inversely with cigarette prices: the higher the cigarette price, the less cannabis use (though the association of cannabis use with later hard drug use was not robust). Another study found that adolescents (especially the youngest ones) who smoke are 50% more likely to have drinking problems than those who do not. Still another study finds that giving nicotine to early adolescent rats appears to increase the reinforcing (reward) effects of subsequent cocaine exposure, an effect that was not seen in adult rats. However, as with the Karolinska study on cannabis given to adolescent rats, extrapolation to humans is difficult.

The price and tax of tobacco, particularly cigarettes, has been inversely associated with not just cigarette consumption but also that of alcohol and cannabis. This suggests complementarity between tobacco and alcohol and between tobacco and cannabis, but not necessarily a gateway effect.

A more recent US-Finnish twin study found that those who started smoking tobacco by the age of 12 were 26 times more likely to start using cannabis or other illcit drugs by age 17, compared to those who never smoked. In fact, early tobacco smoking was one of the most powerful predictors of later use of illicit drugs.