Teenagers Who Use Marijuana are More Likely to Move On to Harder Illicit Drugs: Study

A new research from the University of New Hampshire, published in the journal of Health and Social Behavior, used survey data from 1286 young adults who attended schools in 1990s. 26% of them are African Americans, 44% are Hispanics, and 30% are non-Hispanic whites.

The research showed that the teenagers who use marijuana are more likely to move on to harder illicit drugs as young adults. They found that the young adults who did not graduate from high school or college are more likely to use marijuana and other illicit drugs in their young adulthood. They also added saying that, those people who used marijuana during their teenage and were unemployed were more likely to use other illicit drugs.

The experts from the study also said that, whether teenagers who used pot will use other illicit drugs as young adults has to do more with life factors such as employment status and stress. In fact the strongest predictor of whether some one will use illicit drug is their race or ethnicity, but not their use of marijuana.

Employment in the the early adulthood can protect the people by closing the gate way for marijuana use. Moreover the age factor also shows greater impact on the use of marijuana. Once an individual reaches the age of 21 the gateway effect of marijuana decreases gradually. On the other hand, marijuana use may severe as a gateway to other illicit drug use in adolescence.