|
|
|
|
SYRACUSE HERALD-JOURNALTUESDAY, JULY 15, 1997DRUG 'GATEWAY THEORY' IS ILLOGICAL, POLITICALYour recent article on the so-called gateway effects of marijuana conceals faulty logic and bad science. Although many cocaine users used marijuana first, only a tiny percentage of those who use marijuana ever go on to use cocaine.
Consider this analogy: Almost every bus driver rode a tricycle during childhood, but very few trike-riders become professional bus drivers. Childhood trike-riding simply does not predispose you to becoming a bus-driver. Despite its potent political punch, the gateway theory is similarly meaningless in scientific terms. The logical question that arises from these recent biochemical studies is this: Why, despite the brain-stimulating effects of weak pleasure drugs, do so few people choose to use stronger pleasure drugs? Can human beings act in their own best interest without the coercion and propaganda of a paternalistic government? Bite your tongue! These are forbidden questions. Marijuana's "gateway effect" is regularly cited to justify its illegal status. However, the same statistics that show marijuana users to be 17 times more likely to use cocaine reveal another fact that's conveniently ignored: Alcohol users are 85 times more likely to use cocaine than non-users. Consistent application of gateway reasoning requires the criminalization of alcohol. Whether coercive paternalism concerning pleasure drugs is right or wrong is a complex question. That it should be applied logically and consistently is indisputable. America currently has a two-tiered control scheme for pleasure drugs: The most dangerous drugs, alcohol and tobacco, are subject to civil regulation, while an arbitrarily chosen set of demonized drugs are intensively criminalized. Yet no public official dares to suggest that this contradictory two-tiered system should ever be rationalized. It remains illogical and unjust for the sake of political pandering.
NICOLAS EYLE |
|
|
We'd naturally expect that users of strong pleasure drugs had used weaker
drugs earlier. But those who claim that earlier use of the weaker drug
accounts for later use of the stronger drug are violating a fundamental
rule of statistical inference: "correlation does not imply causality." The
gateway theory's convoluted retrospective reasoning falls far short of
causal proof.