Gateway Drugs & Outdated Ideas

Hey - great question and thank you for it. Sadly, yes - many in my field still consider marijuana to be a gateway drug. This flies in the face of common sense. If the concept of a "gateway" drug is at all useful/meaningful than it would be far more accurate to consider alcohol or nicotine a gateway drug as these are the first people generally try.

I find myself far more interested in what I'm calling "Gateway experiences" - what are the risk factors and experiences that put people at risk for addiction in life? The concept of a gateway drug doesn't do anything meaningful except to say, "Well, um yea...that's where they started." We have a long way to go in research and in improving our understanding of others experiences.