If you smoke weed with friends or have an edible before bed, how did you start? Did cannabis become a habit? Did smoking weed lead you to other substances?

Key points

• The gateway theory attempts to show a link between smoking weed and an increased risk of trying other substances. 
• 70.4% of Cal Poly students have consumed cannabis at some point in their lives – 43.7% say they consume weed more than once a month, according to a survey conducted by Mustang News. 
• In that same survey, 64.1% of respondents drink alcohol more than once a month and 8.6% have used an illegal or unprescribed drug in the past six months. 

WTF is a gateway?

The gateway theory attempts to tell us that smoking a joint will inevitably lead you down a road to crack—or more generally, that consuming one substance will lead users to try another substance. Is there any truth to this? 

It was announced on April 30 that the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is planning to reclassify cannabis as a lower-risk drug, according to The Washington Post. 

Currently, cannabis is federally classified as a schedule 1 substance. These substances, which also include heroin, LSD, ecstasy, methaqualone and peyote, are not currently accepted for medical use and have a high potential for abuse.

The premise of the gateway theory is that when cannabis was illegal on all levels, consumers would go to a person selling cannabis who was also selling other substances. Therefore, the consumer might be enticed to try additional drugs even if they only intended to purchase cannabis, according to ethnic studies professor Dr. Gabriel Soldatenko.

These informal economies may still exist, but legalization efforts have changed the cannabis industry. 

“People are still selling other kinds of drugs,” Soldatenko said. “You’re just not going to those people anymore because if you’re looking for marijuana you don’t need to.”

Armando Gudino, a colleague of Soldatenko, is a drug policy expert and contributed to Prop 64, the landmark ballot initiative that legalized recreational marijuana sale and use in California. He simply does not buy into this “abstract narrative.” 

“The gateway theory from its inception was a commercial narrative that was used to advance certain political or religious ideologies,” Gudino said. “The idea that you walked up and bought a bag of weed, and, at some point, we fucking come alive and say, ‘Oh, we’re trying cocaine.’ It was just ridiculous.” 

This theory helped fuel the war on drugs, which specifically targeted communities of color. The criminalization started with the Nixon administration, according to Soldatenko. 

“We know drug usage is constant across racial groups,” Soldatenko said. “In terms of enforcement, we see a dramatic difference between racial groups of who’s getting arrested and charged for either possession or distribution back in the 80s and 90s.”

The gateway theory was specifically discussed in terms of a cannabis gateway effect, not alcohol. Gudino also cites this discrepancy to show the gateway theory to be false.

“Liquor is something that you could readily access from your parents,” Gudino said. “Or most young people get liquor from an older friend who looked a little older or had a fake ID. More often than not, they get liquor from home.”

Gudino said an alcohol oriented gateway theory was never created because it would not be beneficial to policy makers. It would contradict family values if society worried about families giving their youth alcohol, according to Gudino. 

“I remember the war on drugs from the 80s,” Gudino said. “With every generation, these narratives become deconstructed, and we begin to embrace the way in which the current legal trends are evolving. In this case, you are growing up in the world of legal cannabis.”

Drug Use at Cal Poly

Mustang News surveyed Cal Poly students about drug use habits, finding that 70.4% of respondents have consumed cannabis at some point in their lives – 43.7% say they consume weed more than once a month.

Additionally, in that same survey, 64.1% of respondents drink alcohol more than once a month and 8.6% have used an illegal or unprescribed drug in the past 6 months. 

Like Professor Soldatenko and drug policy expert Gudino, many Cal Poly students do not believe the gateway theory has much legitimacy. 

“When someone’s like, ‘This is a gateway drug, and this is gonna lead you to do these things,’ I don’t really buy into that,” an electrical engineering senior said. 

Respondents from the Weed All About It survey, cannabis users or not, consistently said that they understand the gateway theory but have never seen the effects with their own eyes. 

“Growing up. I always heard, ‘Oh, [cannabis] is a gateway drug. It is something you do, and then it pushes you to do another worse thing,’” a computer science sophomore said. “I haven’t noticed this. For me, I haven’t wanted to do anything else. Anyone in my circle also hasn’t, but I can see how people who try cannabis would do something else and then be like, ‘Oh, I’m fine doing this. I feel comfortable.’”

Even if students do consume hard drugs, they say that smoking cannabis was not the reason they chose to try other substances. “For myself, weed was like the first thing I ever did,” a biology sophomore said. “I’ve done shrooms before and then Adderall. [Cannabis] definitely led to me doing it, but I’m not smoking weed and thinking, ‘I want to do crazier shit because of it. It’s more of I would say it’s more of like experiencing new things kind of.”

Cal Poly students appear to buy into an alternate explanation for the gateway effect. There is a sense that as one gets more confident and comfortable with a substance they may begin to try other substances – not the informal economic explanation used during the war on drugs as Soldatenko and Gudino describe. 

“I think the more comfortable you get with using alcohol or weed, the more you’re probably likely to try other things as well,” an environmental engineering freshman, who has never consumed cannabis, said. “I don’t necessarily think if you start smoking weed, you’re gonna start taking hard drugs. But I definitely think the more confident you get with testing things out, the more confident you get the more exposed you are to other people that are taking different types of drugs.”

There are also different pathways per drug, according to an environmental management & protection student. 

“I think [cannabis] could be more of a gateway to psychedelic usage,” they said. “A lot of my stoner friends often do ketamine, but I think people who smoke are definitely more likely to be interested in psychedelics in general.”

The same electrical engineering senior concurred. 

“It’s like there’s subcultures, and they all have their own paths,” they said. “There’s the whole frat ecosystem here, and they’re just going to be consuming a lot of alcohol. The earthier, outdoorsy people are into a lot of marijuana and a lot of caffeine. I have friends who microdose and take a shit ton of shrooms, but will never have more than two drinks and never get blackout-drunk.”

Beyond cannabis and alcohol, some students even claim that nicotine is the real gateway. It is easily accessible, comes in many different forms and can cause addictive tendencies to appear, according to a food science and nutrition sophomore.

“I think my theory is that the true gateway drug to doing more [substances] is nicotine,” the second year food science and nutrition student said. “Nicotine is such an addictive substance. Then from there if you start growing that addictive personality, it can lead to other more serious drugs.” 

They also pointed out the possible benefits to cannabis that other substances do not have. 

“Weed is more of a natural substance, and it’s really just a plant at the end of the day,” the second year food science and nutrition student said. “I think it is less of a gateway drug because it can act as a medicinal type of activity and has medicinal benefits, along with fun extracurricular benefits. A lot of other drugs typically don’t have those medicinal benefits.”

Mustang News sent a survey about cannabis use and other substance use trends to 3000 randomly selected student’s Cal Poly emails. There were 409 respondents – a 13.6% response rate, which represents about 2% of the entire student body.

Participants were asked questions asking if they use certain drugs and additional multiple choice questions about their frequency and consumption methods. At the end of the survey, there were a few optional open response questions, one of which asked for their thoughts about the gateway theory.

Mustang News then conducted follow up interviews with participants who opted in for an anonymous one-on-one interview with a reporter. Quotes from students featured in this article were collected from these follow up interviews.