Historical trends in the grade of onset and sequence of cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana use among adolescents from 1976-2016: implications for “Gateway” patterns in adolescence

Psychoactive substance use tends to begin in adolescence and early adulthood in a predictable sequence. Adolescents who use substances most often begin with those that are licit for adults and more readily available, such as alcohol and tobacco, and then a proportion of those will experiment with marijuana and other drugs (Kandel and Kandel, 2015; Ramo et al., 2012; Wall et al., 2018). Indeed, historically, few adolescents who use marijuana have not experimented with alcohol and cigarettes beforehand.
Source: Drug and Alcohol Dependence - Category: Addiction Authors: Tags: Full length article Source Type: research