UNH Research Shows Risk Of Marijuana’s ‘Gateway Effect’ False

New research from the University of New Hampshire shows that the “gateway effect” of marijuana – that teenagers who use marijuana are more likely to move on to harder illicit drugs as young adults – is overblown.

According to the new research, whether teenagers who smoked marijuana will use other illicit drugs as young adults has to do with life factors such as employment status and stress. In fact, the strongest predictor of whether someone will use other illicit drugs is their race/ethnicity, not whether they ever used marijuana. Non-Hispanic whites show the greatest odds of other illicit substance use, followed by Hispanics, and then by African Americans.

“In light of these findings, we urge U.S. drug control policymakers to consider stress and life-course approaches in their pursuit of solutions to the ‘drug problem,’ ” Van Gundy and Rebellon, UNH Associate Professors of Sociology.

The researchers found that young adults who did not graduate from high school or attend college were more likely to have used marijuana as teenagers and other illicit substances in young adulthood. In addition, those who used marijuana as teenagers and were unemployed following high school were more likely to use other illicit drugs.

However, the association between teenage marijuana use and other illicit drug abuse by young adults fades once stress, like unemployment, diminish.

“Employment in young adulthood can protect people by ‘closing’ the marijuana gateway, so over-criminalizing youth marijuana use might create more serious problems if it interferes with later employment opportunities,” Van Gundy says.