Use of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana are more likely to come earlier than use of different medicinal drugs.21,22 Animal reports have shown that early exposure to addictive materials, including THC, could trade how the mind responds to different medicines. For instance, when rodents are many times uncovered to THC when they're young, they later exhibit an more desirable response to other addictive supplies—equivalent to morphine or nicotine—within the areas of the mind that manipulate reward, they usually're more prone to show dependancy-like behaviors.23,24
despite the fact that these findings help the notion of marijuana as a "gateway drug," the majority of men and women who use marijuana do not go on to use different "harder" drugs. It's also primary to note that other motives apart from organic mechanisms, akin to a character’s social atmosphere, are also principal in a man or woman’s threat for drug use and dependancy. Read more about marijuana as a gateway drug in our Marijuana research document.