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- Title
Is cannabis a gateway to hard drugs?
- Authors
Melberg, Hans Olav; Jones, Andrew M.; Bretteville-Jensen, Anne
- Abstract
The gateway hypothesis proposes that use of cannabis directly increases the risk of consuming hard drugs.We test this controversial, but influential, hypothesis on a sample of cannabis users, exploiting a unique set of drug price data. A flexible approach is developed to identify the causal gateway effect using a bivariate survival model with shared frailty estimated using a latent class approach. The model suggests two distinct groups; a smaller group of "troubled youths" for whom there is a statistically significant gateway effect that more than doubles the hazard of starting to use hard drugs and a larger fraction of youths for whom previous cannabis use has less impact.
- Subjects
CANNABIS (Genus); DRUGS of abuse; COCAINE; YOUTH &; drugs; HEROIN; COST effectiveness; RETROSPECTIVE studies; HETEROGENEITY; HYPOTHESIS
- Publication
Empirical Economics, 2010, Vol 38, Issue 3, p583
- ISSN
0377-7332
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s00181-009-0280-z