US Attorney General admits cannabis is not a gateway drug

In a speech in Richmond, Kentucky, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch admitted that cannabis is not a gateway drug (a drug that leads to the use of other drugs), one of the most frequently cited arguments by advocates of non-legalization.

Loretta Lynch was speaking to a group of young people about the dangers of opiate abuse. In her introduction, Lynch was adamant that the state's heroin epidemic was driven by the primary use of opiate-based drugs.

«When you look at someone who has a problem with heroin, it often started with prescription drugs. Something totally legal. Something you find in every doctor's office. Something you get prescribed in good faith by a doctor,» she declared before taking questions from her audience.

The discussion then quickly turned to cannabis, with the question of whether cannabis use among students could lead to opiate abuse.

«There's a lot of discussion about it,» Lynch replied. «Some states are legalizing it, people are looking for medical use, and I understand it's as commonplace as anything else. When we talk about heroin addiction, we're talking in particular about people who started out with a drug addiction problem, and as they keep asking for more, they turn to heroin. It's only very rarely that they used marijuana before drugs or opiates».

And finally: «We don't see cannabis as a gateway drug in particular».

Lynch's comment is in line with a study published in July by the National Institute of Health which showed that cannabis use was not associated with an increase in the use of other drugs.

Cannabis may even work like a gateway drug. American states that have effectively legalized at least medical cannabis have seen a significant drop in opioid abuse and painkiller prescriptions. Today, the United States has a serious problem of overconsumption of opioid painkillers, with almost 15,000 deaths a year (more than 40 a day).