This can't be true! It just can't be.

[RegieRocker]

Cigarettes and alcohol serve as gateway drugs, which people use before progressing to the use of marijuana and then to cocaine and other illicit substances; this progression is called the "gateway sequence" of drug use.

An article in Science Translational Medicine by study author Denise Kandel, PhD, of the Mailman School of Public Health; and Amir Levine, MD; Eric Kandel, MD; and colleagues at Columbia University Medical Center provides the first molecular explanation for the gateway sequence.

They show that nicotine causes specific changes in the brain that make it more vulnerable to cocaine addiction -- a discovery made by using a novel mouse model.
More http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111102190400.htm

[bemildred]

1. I think people who like drugs will try what is available.

And use the stuff they like the best. But for some reason I can't get funding for my study.

[redqueen]

15. It's already been done.

Animals who get drunk on fermented fruit have been shown to have about the same percentages of nonuse/use/abuse rates as shown in humans.

[Vincardog]

2. OTOH oxygen has been proven to lead to all other addictions.

[dtexdem]

19. But even worse is the deadly dihydrogen monoxide.

Oxygen not only combines with hydrogen in an explosive way, but it creates the ultimate gateway drug; and one used as a base liquid in many drugs and other concoctions.

[rfranklin]

3. I got hooked starting with breast milk...it was just a slppery slope...

to chocolate milk and then mocha latte. Now I'm mainlining triple espressos.

[undeterred]

4. Well, thank god I was born in the fifties when the bottle was cool.

Formula, that is.

[unblock]

10. i hear the baby formula is a gateway to methadone addition

[dtexdem]

20. But I tell you, it's that dihydrogen monoxide that really gets you:

and it's the cause of the slipperiness of many a slope. ;-)

[Angry Dragon]

29. Perhaps if you found a breast you could wean yourself back

just a thought...........

[RegieRocker]

43. You're also still addicted to adolesnce.

[truedelphi]

5. I used to have a roommate who had a poster that "proved" how tomato

Sauce is a gateway drug.

Think 'bout it - have you known many people who smoked pot that didn't really like pizza?

:-)

[RKP5637]

6. Water is the root cause of all of this. If we had no water we wouldn't have this problem. People

are addicted to water. They are so addicted to it they not only drink it, they even bathe in it ...

[iscooterliberally]

8. "..they even bathe in it..."

:rofl:

[alphafemale]

27. You are right. 100% of People addicted to meth and heroine have been users of water. nt

[iscooterliberally]

7. 100% of people who eat food and drink water, die...

...eventually. :evilgrin:

[HopeHoops]

9. Chocolate is a gateway drug.

Next thing you know you'll be eating cookies, brownies, cake, and whatever the fuck those gummy worm things are.

[pinboy3niner]

12. And coffee!

Between chocolate and coffee, I was doubly doomed to be constantly and forever jonesing for chocolate-covered espresso beans. :)

[HopeHoops]

14. Next thing you know you'll be hooked on chocolate covered strawberries!

And raisinettes, and, GOD help you - steamed artichokes with melted garlic butter!!!!

[FarCenter]

11. The study reaches conclusions only for nicotine and cocaine

"Alternate orders of exposure to nicotine and cocaine were examined. The authors found that pretreatment with nicotine greatly alters the response to cocaine in terms of addiction-related behavior and synaptic plasticity (changes in synaptic strength) in the striatum, a brain region critical for addiction-related rewards. On a molecular level, nicotine also primes the response to cocaine by inhibiting the activity of an enzyme―histone deacetylase―in the striatum. This inhibition enhances cocaine's ability to activate a gene called FosB gene, which promotes addiction.

The relationship between nicotine and cocaine was found to be unidirectional: nicotine dramatically enhances the response to cocaine, but there is no effect of cocaine on the response to nicotine. Nicotine's ability to inhibit histone deacetylase thus provides a molecular mechanism for the gateway sequence of drug use."

It only speculates on further study of alcohol as a primer for addiction and reaches no conclusion for other addictive drugs.

[RegieRocker]

13. I don't need no study.

The first drugs for most is alcohol and or tobacco sneaked from parents. End of story.

[FarCenter]

17. Nicotine is as addictive as heroin; Alcohol is much less addictive.

There is some evidence that nicotine also increases the addictive properties of ethanol.

[RegieRocker]

34. Have you ever witnessed an extreme alcoholic dry out. I have, and no way

have I witnessed anything close in severity in quiting nicotine.
http://www.aafp.org/afp/2004/0315/p1443.html

[FarCenter]

36. In the beginning, it takes less use of nicotine to become addicted compared with alcohol

Smokers are hooked faster than people are hooked on alcohol.

[RegieRocker]

38. That is true however, long term heavy use of alciohol is more devasting

than nicotine. Extreme alcohol addiction destroys more lives by 1000 x that of extreme nicotine addiction . Fast and complete compared to nicotine. I have witnessed this first hand.

[RegieRocker]

40. It is obvious with the amount of replies from those still sucking

on the tete and other immature responses , that juveniles are a plenty here on DU.

[gkhouston]

42. I know someone who says that kicking heroin was easer than quitting smoking. n/t

[demigoddess]

21. the first cigarettes are second hand smoke from parents

I know firsthand that you can become addicted, or at least desirous, from second hand smoke. I think that is why kids start smoking when they spend less time with mom and dad.

[RegieRocker]

35. hmm..interesting

[JuniperLea]

16. I've been saying that for years...

I don't know one stoner who didn't first drink alcohol.

Ever visited a friend in stoner rehab? It's rare to find a non-smoker there, imho.

[drmeow]

26. I smoked pot before I drank alcohol

other than a taste here or there. I didn't like the taste of alcohol.

[RegieRocker]

31. You are such a rebel!

[drmeow]

39. Moi?

Former card carrying member of the American Communist Party moi? A rebel? How can you say that?

:evilgrin:

[kestrel91316]

18. I dunno about the rest of you, but for me it all started with Twinkies.

[JuniperLea]

23. It started with titties for me...

Breast milk is the ultimate gateway drug!

[saras]

22. When I learned about drugs decades ago, I was taught that the gateway hypothesis was discredited

It had been disproven, statistically and sociologically, over and over again, decade after decade. There wasn't any gateway effect except for differential availability. That is, it's really unlikely for someone to start with heroin, then progress to cocaine, then pot, then tobacco, no matter what drugs they desire, simply because it's impractical. If you're a (hypothetical) born junkie, first, you won't know this until you try opiates, and second, there's a good chance you'll encounter all the common social drugs before you have your first opiates - unless you encounter painkillers, in which case you may progress directly to opiates regardless of what drugs you currently use, or don't.

What the study actually shows, independent of the ideology of the researchers, is that cocaine works a lot better if you use nicotine for few days before, and while, you use the coke. So in this case, smokers are more likely to get hooked on cocaine than nonsmokers, because their coke works better. But cocaine users who don't smoke are likely to start smoking, as soon as they discover this effect, making cocaine a gateway drug to tobacco too. But there are so many more smokers than cocaine users that the effect appears to be one-way.

SO - if you happen to be going to Las Vegas for a week-long cocaine binge, and you're a nonsmoker, start smoking cigarettes a week before you go, and you'll have a lot more fun with your cocaine. There, we learned something useful from this study.

Too bad the silly sociology is dictating what biology we spend our research dollars on. Is it really useful to go tell smokers that they should quit because they might become coke addicts? Not that it's not perfectly good biology, but why study this and not, say, stupidity?

(later, from the same page - two articles claiming marijuana NOT a gateway drug)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100902073507.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061204123422.htm

After a hundred years of bullshit, maybe we're finally getting somewhere.
(edited for new links and general betterness)

[fascisthunter]

24. You Know what a Gate-Way to Drugs really is...

our mother's vaginas... once you come out... it's over. The idiocy never ends...

[RagAss]

28. Amen.....this constant search for evil causation is comical !

[RegieRocker]

41. Yes and your post is proof that it never ends.

[Avalux]

25. Those with addictive personalities will abuse anything including food and sex.

I've never been a fan of the gateway theory; it just doesn't make sense from what I've witnessed. Some people are "all in" and can't stop; others can experiment every now and then, walk away and never do it again.

Don't think it matters the substance or the addiction of choice.

[RegieRocker]

30. i watched a show on that very topic...

They stated in the genome there are markers that determine addiction. The more you have the more you're likely to become addicted. If you have too many you will never be able to stop once started. If you have very few you can quit with ease. The point which escapes most is this. If you never start you can't become addicted. Once you start down the path of experiencing drugs the more likely you are to try another. That is my meaning of gateway. Hence cigs and alcohol. Too often people tend to think everyone is the same. They are not. It isn't a laughing nor silly matter.

[RebelOne]

32. That is a crock.

I have smoked cigarettes for years, smoked marijuana, did coke (have done neither for the past 30 years) and have never become addicted to anything but nicotine. That is more addicting than any other drug.

[cwydro]

33. What crap.

I have a lot of smoker friends who NEVER used drugs.

I, on the other hand though never a smoker, did experiment with a number of the "milder" illegal drugs in my youth.

Edit to say I realize the point of your OP lol.

[cherokeeprogressive]

37. When I read "novel mouse model" I thought... Fabio Mouse?