http://www.betweenthelines.net.au/blog See the latest blog comments from Between the Lines Tue, 22 May 2012 02:10:1337616622 EST EN-AU http://www.betweenthelines.net.au/blog/study-cannabis-leads-to-the-hard-stuff#comment_2061 Tue, 06 Apr 2010 17:47:1270540051 GMT I think the title of the post is a little misleading. Obviously, there will be a correlation between people cannabis use at an early age and use of harder drugs later on in life. However, it seems unreasonable to portray the link as a causal one. Most heroin users first smoked cannabis, though only a tiny fraction of cannabis users progress to heroin. If the gateway theory is true, then alcohol and caffeine also act as a gateway drugs. I&#39;m sure most injecting ice users had coffee before meth. Do they progress to meth simply because the coffee isn&#39;t a hard enough stimulant?<div><br /></div><div>It&#39;s more likely that the social surroundings in which one first obtains cannabis is likely to lead to trying harder drugs, rather than cannabis itself leading to the use of harder drugs. If young people need to contact dealers to score their pot, then they&#39;re obviously at a much higher risk of being offered something harder.</div>