Can Marijuana Solve the Opioid Epidemic?

This article was originally posted on The Green Fund — Australia’s preeminent source of cannabis information.

Could Marijuana help solve the opioid epidemic? Many are starting to believe it can.

Though for those who remember the ‘Gateway Theory,’ this newfound belief in marijuana will come as a surprise.

Popularized by Robert DuPont in the 80’s during the Reagan presidency’s ‘War on Drugs,’ the Gateway Theory suggests that those who smoke cannabis would develop an appetite for further illicit substances, and spiral down a path of harder and harder drugs.

Presumably the weed smoker would acquire these drugs through their dealer, who possesses a host of other drugs and tries to sell them to the smoker to make more profits.

The fame of this theory comes largely from a guide DuPont published entitled ‘Getting Tough on Gateway Drugs: A Guide for the Family‘ which outlined the consistency between those who used hard drugs, and their likelihood to have tried marijuana.

DuPont believed that marijuana use would “prime” the brain for harder drugs, and potentially increased the probability that marijuana smokers would go on to use heroin. The theory couldn’t have come at a better time for those that opposed the plant, with the War on Drugs ramping up and…