Exonerated Cannabis Is Not a Gateway Drug
In the transition from light to heavy substances there are no "bridge substances", but "bridge temperaments": a sort of "inclination" to experiment with what alters or stimulates
It is often said that those who use soft drugs have an easy path to try harder drugs later on. Psychiatrists explain that, while it is true that people who use hard substances almost always started by taking soft substances, the reverse is not a given, that is, that those who use “light” drugs then move on to taking harder ones.
Cannabis under accusation
The question has been raised several times, especially with regard to cannabis, the consumption of which is often indicated as a sort of “precedent” that facilitates the development of the assumption and dependence on harder drugs. As Matteo Pacini, psychiatrist, psychotherapist and expert in addictions, explains, rather than “bridge drugs” or “transition drugs” it would be more correct to speak of “ bridge temperaments ”: in short, people move from softer drugs to harder substances because of their aptitudes , and not because they have tried a certain substance that creates a sort of connection, and therefore a bridge, with another.
The bridge temperaments
On the one hand, explains Pacini, "it is true that those who use cannabis usually try other drugs more easily and at a younger age. Just as it is true that those who try cannabis before the age of twenty tend to move on to other drugs much more often than those who try it at a younger age." These data, explains the expert, are not significant "because things could simply be this way: those who use substances, starting obviously with the legal and more available ones, at an early age, have an indiscriminate tendency to try all drugs, and therefore will more likely try the illegal and hard ones earlier." Therefore, the psychiatrist specifies, there are no "bridge drugs" but "bridge temperaments", in which the "bridge" to the use of hard substances would depend not on the previous intake of a certain substance, but on the nature of the person who feels attracted to everything that can stimulate or alter and who is therefore more inclined than others to try new substances.
Cannabis exonerated
In short, the transition from softer drugs to harder drugs does not exist . "When we talk about the transition from the use of softer substances to harder substances, the concept of 'bridge drug' is fallacious in itself: how can we sustain that cannabis use induces the brain to want a stronger drug, such as heroin, if the brain has no experience with the latter because it has never tried it?" explains Pacini. "Cannabis, therefore, can be exonerated from the accusation of acting as a 'gateway drug': the hypothesis that the use of this substance could be a 'bridge' to harder substances has never been demonstrated. Cannabis is in fact a very widespread drug and consumed both by those who then become drug addicts, moving on to the use of harder substances, and by those who have not become addicts."
Stimulants and tranquilizers, heroin and alcohol
If cannabis can be exonerated from the accusation of acting as a “bridge drug” facilitating the transition to hard drugs in those who use it, other “bridge mechanisms” in the field of narcotics exist, and have been scientifically proven. “This is the case, for example, of the transition from stimulant drugs to tranquilizers and the transition from heroin to alcohol ,” explains Pacini. “In the first case, people who use amphetamines, cocaine and psychedelics tend over time to switch to mixed use to compensate for the anxiety-inducing and depressive effects of these substances, and subsequently to switch to taking predominantly sedative substances such as alcohol, heroin and tranquilizers. In the second case, those who have used heroin in the past, even after detoxification, tend quite frequently to find refuge in alcohol in search of a compensatory effect.”
Cannabis is not a soft drug, but an “intermediate” one
Contrary to popular belief, cannabis is not a light drug, but an “intermediate” one. If a drug is a chemical substance that when taken modifies some mental functions, “we can distinguish between light and heavy substances based on whether the alteration produced at a mental level (feeling of being high, euphoria) is more or less violent and shocking compared to the normal functioning of the brain,” explains the expert. Some substances are considered light (like cigarettes and coffee ), others heavy (like heroin and cocaine), and still others “intermediate”: this is the case of cannabis and alcohol , whose acute and chronic effects at a mental level vary depending on the quantity taken and individual sensitivity. As Pacini explains, “the concept of ‘heaviness’ of a substance depends on two factors: the effect it produces (at an acute and chronic level), and the ability to induce dependence. A narcotic is heavy both in terms of its effect and its dependence. As regards cannabis, the classification as an 'intermediate substance' refers to the fact that from the point of view of dependence it does not substantially cause any, even if it can then cause other problems, even serious ones".
