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Drugs are awesome, and I bet you love it when you take them.
That’s… why people take them. Because they rule.
But why do you do these drugs? Is it because when you were 16, you had a puff of a marijuana cigarette, then, when you came out of that stoned, fogged haze, it wasn’t two hours later, but instead nine years and you were addicted to percocet and bourbon?
I know that’s what happened to me. But is the weed really to blame for your decade of awesome drug consumption? Nope. Not at all. Scientists have determined it was the sweet, sweet booze you had before you took a single puff of the pot.
A team of researchers from Texas A&M and the University of Florida examined data from from 2,800 U.S. 12th graders interviewed for the Monitoring the Future study, an annual federal survey of teen drug use. They wanted to establish which substances teens typically used first.
They give away their findings in the title of their paper: “Prioritizing Alcohol Prevention: Establishing Alcohol as the Gateway Drug and Linking Age of First Drink With Illicit Drug Use.” They found that “the vast majority of respondents reported using alcohol prior to either tobacco or marijuana initiation.”
Not only that, but of those three main substances — alcohol, tobacco and marijuana — kids were the least likely to start using pot before the others.
This would be good to use back in high school when your parents try to weed shame you, but then they might tell you not to drink. Which would be even worse.
So maybe just let people keep complaining about marijuana. Alcohol can be our little secret. Because think about how much it’s done for you. Cocaine. Mushrooms. Vicodin. And it still gets you drunk all these years later. It really is the gift that keeps on giving.
[Via The Washington Post]