‘Gateway Theory’ was popularized by Robert DuPont in the ’80s during President Reagan’s ‘War on Drugs’ campaign. The Gateway Theory suggests that by smoking cannabis, a person develops a craving for illicit substances, and is more likely to try harder and harder drugs.
The other assumption is that a cannabis dealer would also end up being a peddler for harder drugs. Over time, the peddler would introduce harder drugs to the cannabis user. To this extent, the theory holds some weight. But with the legalization of cannabis, a user can obtain cannabis from a licensed cannabis dispensary.
The other assumption by DuPont was that marijuana could prime the brain for harder drugs. To date, there is no scientific evidence to back this assumption.
From this campaign, it was decided that a person found guilty of using cannabis would be subject to serve a prison term. Obviously, incarceration rates skyrocketed, but the rates of drug abuse did not decline. This definitely points to a weakness in the approach used by the “War on Drugs.” Imprisoning citizens for marijuana use has not led to a decline in the rates of abuse of harder drugs. But that’s not to imply that the issue of drug abuse isn’t critical– in fact, it is at its worst today.
