Gateway to Nowhere: How Alcohol Came to be Scapegoated for Drug Abuse

Abstract

The “gateway” theory of drug use holds that exposure to “entry” drugs–notable alcohol, cigarettes, and mari-juana-reliably predicts deeper and more severe drug involvements. U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey has incorporated the gateway theory as an integral part of the country's drug policy. However, although most heavier drug users undoubtedly were once lighter drug users, this association does not establish a causal connection. Few young people progress from lighter to heavier drug use; in fact, the dominant trend is for young people to reduce illicit drug use and to stabilize drinking with maturity. The gateway theory may actually be counterproductive if we consider that in non-temperance cultures that manage alcohol succesl'ully, alcohol is generally introduced to young people at an early age. Other evidence suggests that moderate-drinking and drug-using young people. even when such behavior is illegal, are better off psychologically and are more likely to make a succesful transition to adulthood than abstainers. Overriding all such profiles of moderate and abusive users of drugs and alcohol are social-epidemilogic models which indicate that the best predictors of abusive substance use are social, family, and psychological depredations that occur independent of supposed gateway linkages.

Key Words:

• Gateway drug
• gateway behavior
• stepping-stone drug
• temperance
• moderate drinking
• problem-behavior theory
• alcohol
• marijuana
• cigarette smoking
• adolescent