CASAA Call to Action: I can only describe these Columbia University scientists recent findings as a desperate attempt to please the ANTZ crowd which they are charter members of and insure they have additional funding for further research. Sweeping generalizations with no basis in fact. Conducted on Mice and not humans!. The dots just don’t connect. It’s deplorable to what levels these Desk Murders will stoop. Correlation is not causation. I love coffee and sugar which could all be considered gateway substances to illicit drug use as they all trigger biochemical responses in the “reward” center of the brain. Assuming the reader actually believed this specious and self serving dribble. A few extracts:
“…they found that when mice are exposed to nicotine, it alters their brain biochemically and induces activation of a reward-related gene. As a result, nicotine primes the animals’ subsequent response to cocaine, providing a molecular basis for nicotine as a gateway drug for cocaine.”
“E-cigarettes may be a gateway to both combustible cigarettes and illicit drugs.”
Source and the full study.
My words tend to be inflammatory and that is by design. Here is a more refined response from Dr. Siegel, a Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health.
“This story further illustrates the depths to which electronic cigarette opponents are sinking. They cannot defend their opposition to e-cigarettes based on actual sound scientific research or reasoning. Thus, they have to either twist and distort the science or grossly extrapolate from studies that actually have little relevance to the clinical situation at hand.”
Finally, Mice and humans, with respect to cocaine use and the gateway theory, are two unrelated situations and any correlation between the two is patently false. It’s a spin and is a flawed “apples and oranges” assertion. People start using cocaine for various reasons. Most often:
• It is a way to block out personal worries or other effects caused by their situation such as violence, poverty, and hopelessness.
• They are curious and the drugs are readily available.
• They use the drug to combat boredom.
• It is sometimes easier to get a chemical high instantly, than working on a natural high over a longer period of time.
• The drugs mimic pleasurable natural body functions.