For many years, we’ve all heard that while relatively harmless on its own, using marijuana is believed by some to lead to users experimenting with harder, more addictive, and more dangerous drugs. This is, by definition, what is known as a gateway drug.

However, for the past few years, a group of researchers in Colorado have been conducting a study to determine what science says about the theory that marijuana is, in fact, a gateway drug.

Ideally, a study like this would be most effective by quite literally cloning a human being in order to put them in two different scenarios at once, but the researchers found the next best thing: twins.

Keep scrolling to learn about this fascinating study based right here in Colorado.

Colorado Researchers Use Twins to determine if Marijuana is a Gateway Drug

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Of course, with any study of this nature, numerous factors within a test subject’s overall life can affect the outcome, but the researchers at the University of Colorado collected data from over 2000 sets of twins who agreed to participate back in 2018 to get, at the very least, an idea of whether or not marijuana is really a gateway drug at its core.

The twins were split up and for the past four years one sibling lived in Colorado where recreational marijuana is legal, and the other in Minnesota, where it’s not.

The study’s findings determined that overall, the subjects had practically the same amount, or lack thereof, depending on the case, of issues related to substance abuse and other negative effects sometimes attributed to marijuana use.

In fact, the study saw that the subjects in Minnesota who didn’t use marijuana had more problems with alcohol abuse, as a whole.

It’s important to keep in mind that studies like this are just a piece of the overall puzzle as Colorado continues to learn more about marijuana, but the findings of this particular study as well as the use of twins in conducting this kind of research are fascinating nonetheless.

[Westword]

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