Pubdate: Sun, 18 Aug 2013
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Ted Cooper

EXPOSURE UPS RISK

The so-called gateway effect, which has it that marijuana use, 
particularly in adolescence, leads to the consumption of other, 
harder drugs is hotly contested.

An addiction specialist said to me: "Show me an adult with a cocaine 
habit, and I'll show you someone who was 84 times as likely to have 
abused marijuana."

Does everyone who smokes marijuana in adolescence go on to use cocaine?

No, of course not, just as not everyone who goes in the water drowns.

But with increased exposure and usage, the prevalence of substance 
dependence goes up.

Ted Cooper

Powell River
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom