Marijuana is one of those topics that everyone has a distinct opinion about. Either you are more on the “Tobacco has more harmful effects than marijuana does, so it should be legal” side, or the “Marijuana is a gateway drug, so it should be illegal” side. Marijuana has always been known as a “gateway drug”, or a minor drug that leads to the usage of more serious drugs. But has anyone ever considered alcohol to be a gateway drug?

Although there are studies that show marijuana leads to cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, etc., I believe it is almost common sense that one who uses cocaine will not just jump directly to cocaine. It only makes sense for a rock star to have listened to rock music at one point in their life. Marijuana being recognized as a direct gateway drug, however, does not exist. A 12-year experiment, courtesy of the University of Pittsburgh, tackles the question head-on by tracking 214 boys beginning at ages 10-12, all of whom eventually used either legal or illegal drugs. When the boys reached age 22, they were categorized into three groups: those who used only alcohol or tobacco, those who started with alcohol and tobacco then used marijuana, and those who used marijuana prior to alcohol or tobacco.

Nearly a quarter of the study population who used both legal and illegal drugs at some point – 28 boys – exhibited the reverse pattern of using marijuana prior to alcohol or tobacco, and those individuals were no more likely to develop a substance use disorder than those who followed the traditional succession of alcohol and tobacco before illegal drugs, according to the study. “The gateway progression may be a common pattern, but certainly not the only pattern of drug use,” said Ralph E. Tarter, Ph.D, professor at the University of Pittsburgh. “In fact, the reverse pattern is just as accurate for predicting who might be at risk for developing a drug dependence disorder.”

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, alcohol is the most commonly used and abused drug among youth in the United States, more than tobacco and illicit drugs, and is responsible for more than 4,300 annual deaths among underage youth. The article goes on to say, “Although drinking by persons under the age of 21 is illegal, people aged 12 to 20 years drink 11% of all alcohol consumed in the United States. More than 90% of this alcohol is consumed in the form of binge drinks. On average, underage drinkers consume more drinks per drinking occasion than adult drinkers. In 2010, there were approximately 189,000 emergency rooms visits by persons under age 21 for injuries and other conditions linked to alcohol.”

WebMD Health News stated, “The highest and lowest overall harm scores … are 72 for alcohol and 5 for mushrooms,” Nutt and colleagues calculate. “The ICSD scores lend support to the widely accepted view that alcohol is an extremely harmful drug both to users and to society.”

Overall, alcohol should be considered more of a gateway drug than marijuana. There are far more incidents and deaths that occur from alcohol consumption opposed to marijuana. Also, there are too many possible confounding variables in the equation to say that marijuana is a sole gateway drug.