I was in a pet store the other day and asked the clerk (he could be the owner, he’s been there every time I’ve gone in there for the last four years) if Catnip is a drug – would it get my cat high, like marijuana?  He said “Yes, but it won’t hurt him, just like marijuana. It doesn’t hurt anyone.” I jokingly asked him if my cat will want to move on to other drugs once he tries catnip and will my cat eventually need drug rehab.

By then it was obvious we were no longer discussing catnip. He replied that marijuana is not a gateway drug – that whether or not someone goes on to take other drugs once they’ve smoked marijuana depends on the individual, not the drug.

I agreed – duh, I don’t know of one drug that has an inherent chemical property of making the person want a different drug. But I also told him that in all the years I took drugs I’d never once met anyone who only smoked grass. (Not to mention the number of people who wind up in a drug rehab center who’ve taken meth, cocaine, LSD, heroin, and so on, whose first drug experience was with marijuana.)

He informed me that I had now met such a person – him.

Okay. So, I’ve now met one person.

Also – every time I talk about marijuana as a gateway drug I get several comments telling me what an idiot I am. So, there’s a few more.

(For some reason, those responses are always rude and semi-literate. No one ever quotes or lists studies or offers any statistical evidence that people who smoke marijuana don’t usually go onto other drugs; they just quite simply tell me, in no uncertain terms, that I’m an idiot. The responses are akin to “Oh, yeah! So’s your mother, you ****ing ***hole!” Well, when you put it that way … that’s certainly enough to convince me! I don’t know why the scientific community hasn’t taken that into account.)

Nevertheless, the guy in the pet store did give me some insight into why people think marijuana is not a gateway drug. Because drugs don’t cause people to take drugs, people do. Just like guns don’t kill people, people kill people.

It is true? Sure. But, if you put a loaded gun in the hands of a very angry, frightened guy who feels he needs to do something drastic about his emotional state, there’s more chance he’ll use the gun when it’s already in his hand than if he had to wait until the next day, get a gun license, go to the gun store, decide what kind of gun he’d like, figure out if he wants a case for it and, if so, what kind, etc. etc. etc.

Likewise, there’s more chance that someone who’s disillusioned, worried, fearful, unsure of themselves, unhappy, confused, or, apparently, just bored, will take drugs other than marijuana if they’re already high on marijuana (or have used it before without negative affects) and someone is right in front of them offering them something else.

In fact, that can be said of any drug. No matter what drugs a person has taken, there’s more chance that they’ll take a different drug than if they had never taken drugs at all.

So, all drugs are gateway drugs – taking any drug increases the possibility that other drugs will be taken.

If you know someone taking any drug, it’s best to get them into drug treatment before they take things further.

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