Original article (in Slovenian) was published on 17/10/2022
People addicted to one psychoactive substance have a higher risk of developing an additional addiction, the NIJZ says. But international health experts have not yet reached a consensus on whether addiction to soft drugs leads to addiction to “harder” drugs.
Janez Cigler Kralj, an MP for the New Slovenia, claimed in the 27 September news show 24ur Zvečer on POP TV that “according to all data presented by experts and studies, soft drugs do or can very likely lead to addiction to harder drugs.” This was his answer when asked to explain why he opposes the legalization of soft drugs.
The National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ) estimates that people who are already addicted to one psychoactive substance have “a much higher risk of developing an addiction to another [psychoactive substance].” Drug users can develop an addiction to another drug because dealers typically offer multiple drugs. Another reason why they take multiple psychoactive substances is to enhance or reduce the effect of one drug, or to reduce its harmful effects.
They also use other psychoactive substances as a replacement when their drug of choice is not available. In the United States, patients using opioids went on to use heroin when they stopped using opioids, the NIJZ explained.
The organization also mentioned other factors behind addiction to multiple psychoactive substances, for example, poverty, unemployment, and mental health problems. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) explained that many studies have investigated whether soft drugs can cause an addiction to “harder” drugs. The findings for example show that multiple factors contribute to that, including social conditions, access to the black market, and genetic predisposition to addiction.
They pointed out three peer-reviewed scientific papers. A study by two American professors of health sciences, published in 2016 in the international scientific journal Preventive Medicine Reports, shows that those who consumed alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana at a young age did not consume more marijuana or other illicit drugs later in life.
Irish health experts published in 2021 in BMC Public Health, a scientific journal, a paper which confirmed only that those who consume tobacco and marijuana at a young age were more likely to remain users as adults.
The only article that highlights a correlation between early and regular consumption of marijuana and subsequent consumption of other drugs was published in 2005 in the official journal of the Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol & Other Drugs.
The authors, an Australian expert on the neuroethics of addiction and a psychiatrist from New Zealand, analyzed scientific studies to verify the hypothesis that marijuana is a gateway drug, the name for drugs believed to lead to the consumption of other psychoactive substances.
In the conclusions, they warned that despite existing data on a link between regular and early use of marijuana and subsequent use of other drugs, more types of research would have to be conducted to confirm or reject the causality hypothesis, from studies that attribute the use of marijuana with other drugs to genetic factors and the environment in which the users live, to animal testing.
The distinction between soft and hard drugs is outdated
The EMCDDA warned that the terms soft and hard drugs are vague, though still in use in some countries, for example in the Netherlands. They added that the EU classifies illicit substances in accordance with the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, passed in 1961 and amended in 1972, and the UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971. Both classify drugs based on their effect on the body and criteria of harm and risk of addiction.
The NIJZ stressed that “the division to soft and hard drugs is outdated” since drugs are now classified based on the active substances they contain, for example, narcotics and psychotropics. They added that it would make sense to stop using this division in Slovenia as soon as possible.
Slovak experts on psychiatry and an expert on medical ethics published 2017 a review paper in the peer-reviewed scientific journal The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse in which they established that the distinction between soft and hard drugs is unclear in the literature. They analyzed 132 scientific papers in which the authors distinguished between soft and hard drugs to determine that in 90 percent of the papers the categorization was not backed up by relevant sources.
In the conclusion, they warned that there are no thoroughly examined and precisely defined criteria for when a substance should be classified as a soft or a hard drug, and that experts should clearly define these two terms in scientific literature.
The claim by the candidate for president and New Slovenia MP Janez Cigler Kralj that “according to all data presented by experts and studies, soft drugs do or can very likely lead to addiction to harder drugs” is false.
