Marijuana is not a gateway to opioid abuse.
At least according to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who made the claim in front of an auditorium full of high school students during a town hall held at Madison Central High School in Richmond, Ky., Sept. 20.
Lynch was in Kentucky for the national Prescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Awareness Week and was discussing the opioid issue at the town hall event when a student asked if Lynch believes whether recreational marijuana use in high school could lead to a greater risk of opioid use.
“When we talk about heroin addiction, we usually, as we have mentioned, are talking about individuals that started out with a prescription drug problem, and then because they need more and more, they turn to heroin,” Lynch said. “It isn’t so much that marijuana is the step right before using prescription drugs or opioids.”
“It’s not as though we are seeing that marijuana is a specific gateway,” she continued.
Despite making history by becoming the first sitting U.S. Attorney General to step back from the idea that marijuana is a gateway drug, she did add a caveat to her statements, saying “[if] you tend to experiment with a lot of things in life, you may be more inclined to experiment with drugs.”
