Gateway Drug Rehab – Scientific Findings

There’s a lengthy and enduring argument about whether or not or not marijuana is a “gateway drug,” i.e., one which leads important numbers of customers to tougher medication comparable to heroin or cocaine. The stakes are fairly excessive in getting the reply proper: gateway drug rehab for customers of marijuana could possibly hold these customers from “graduating” to prolonged (and addicting) use of the extra damaging medication addiction treatment in MA

Correlation vs. causation

The issue in analyzing this query is just not in merely exhibiting that important numbers of customers first use marijuana then heroin. The issue in making the case lies in whether or not or not correlation implies causation. In different phrases, is it a coincidence or does using one result in using the opposite?

Not too long ago, a examine was carried out to reply that very query: do adolescents who smoke pot improve their odds of touchdown in drug rehab — for heroin habit?

On first look, the examine (from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden), means that marijuana could possibly be a gateway drug. And the examine appears to point that the causation is there: in different phrases, marijuana adjustments your mind’s chemistry sufficient to make the person inclined to tougher medication. So maybe there’s a case to be made for making gateway drug rehab obtainable to pot people who smoke.

What the examine discovered

The experiment went like this: twelve rats had been break up into two equal teams. Every group had been aged Four-7 weeks old (the equal of rat-adolescence). Six of the rats ingested sufficient tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the energetic ingredient in marijuana, to simulate the equivalence of 1 joint each three days. The opposite six rats had been left alone.