Marijuana has been referred to as a gateway drug for decades. But a recent study in the Journal of School Health shows that more high school seniors used or experimented with alcohol before both tobacco and marijuana.
The study’s researchers found that “the vast majority of respondents reported using alcohol prior to either tobacco or marijuana initiation.”
Gateway theories display the belief that using marijuana leads to the use of other drugs, but this study proves that it is, in fact, the other way around.
The study data comes from 2,800 high school seniors that were interviewed for a Monitoring the Future study, a study that is conducted annually to survey teen drug usage, reports The Washington Post.
The researchers concluded that: “Alcohol was the most widely used substance among respondents, initiated earliest, and also the first substance most commonly used in the progression of substance use.”