Other Drugs Sometimes Alleged To Be Gateway Drugs
Due to the past decade's increase in prescription drug abuse, especially narcotic painkillers such as Vicodin and OxyContin, such substances have also been recently labeled as gateway drugs. In the US, such substances appear to be more common than cannabis as the first "illicit" drug tried, and are relatively easy to obtain by adolescents. Due to the similarity between narcotics, those who become addicted to prescription painkillers sometimes move on to heroin since the latter can actually be a cheaper habit to support. In addition, a study on mice found that using oxycodone during adolescence may sensitize the brain's reward system, possibly predisposing to later addiction.
Caffeine has also been alleged by some to be a gateway drug. Being the most widely consumed psychoactive substance in the world, it is often the first one that people use, preceding even alcohol or tobacco if the latter two are used. However, the hypothesis of caffeine being a gateway drug has not been very well studied, and thus there is little to no evidence either way on this question.
Read more about this topic: Steppingstone Theory
Famous quotes containing the words drugs, alleged and/or gateway:
“To possess your soul in patience, with all the skin and some of the flesh burnt off your face and hands, is a job for a boy compared with the pains of a man who has lived pretty long in the exhilarating world that drugs or strong waters seem to create and is trying to live now in the first bald desolation created by knocking them off.”
—C.E. (Charles Edward)
“Most observers of the French Revolution, especially the clever and noble ones, have explained it as a life-threatening and contagious illness. They have remained standing with the symptoms and have interpreted these in manifold and contrary ways. Some have regarded it as a merely local ill. The most ingenious opponents have pressed for castration. They well noticed that this alleged illness is nothing other than the crisis of beginning puberty.”
—Novalis [Friedrich Von Hardenberg] (1772–1801)
“The whole fauna of human fantasies, their marine vegetation, drifts and luxuriates in the dimly lit zones of human activity, as though plaiting thick tresses of darkness. Here, too, appear the lighthouses of the mind, with their outward resemblance to less pure symbols. The gateway to mystery swings open at the touch of human weakness and we have entered the realms of darkness. One false step, one slurred syllable together reveal a man’s thoughts.”
—Louis Aragon (1897–1982)