Journal of Addiction Research & Therapy
Open Access

Abstract

Drug and substance abuse, including tobacco and alcohol, are a cause of deaths. The global demand for drugs has not been substantially reduced and so some challenges exist in the implementation of the drug control system, in the violations generated by drug trafficking of illicit drugs, in the fast evolving nature of new psychoactive substances, and those in national legislative measures, which may result in a violation of human rights. Throughout the world of narcotics trafficking, world heroin consumption (340 tons) and seizures represent an annual flow of 430-450 tons of heroin into the global heroin market. People experiment with drugs for many different reasons, and many of them first try drugs out of curiosity, to relax and have a good time, visibility from friends and peer encouragement, enhance athletic performance and activity, and/or to ease problems with prolonged stress, anxiety, or depression. They probably start from smoking to hard drugs, which cannot be controlled when addicted, which leads to drug abuse. The Gateway Hypothesis was first proposed by Denise Kandel in 1975 in her article â�?�?Stages in Adolescent Involvement in Drug Useâ�?, which entails the idea of the logical sequence that users of hard drugs (cocaine and heroin) begin with licit substances (alcohol and tobacco) to marijuana and ends with harder illicit substances. This study was to examine the gateway drug theory in order to determine which drug (alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana) is the actual â�?�?gatewayâ�? that leads to additional substance use in patients. The cross-sectional studies were used and data were collected, in which the calculated numbers of the sample size were 440 cases. The questionnaires were supplied to drug addict patients at Princess Mother National Institute on Drug Abuse Treatment. The reliability of the values were calculated to be greater than 0.7. Data were analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics. P value < 0.05 is considered statistically significant. The results showed ages of between 18-56 years old. Age of onset was 17 years old. This result confirmed the gateway theory, in which 3 patterns of the gateway were found respectively as follows: Cigarette - Alcohol - Methamphetamine (27.0%, P value < 0.05), Cigarette - Alcohol - Marijuana (18.6%, P value < 0.05), Cigarette - Methamphetamine - Crystal Ice (10.2%, P value < 0.05). Research found that knowledge and attitude are not statistically and significantly associated with the pattern of cigarette - alcohol - methamphetamine. In conclusion, this is the first study on patient abuse that shows the gateway theory. The present study examined the extent and ordering of licit and illicit drug use. The typical gateway sequences of patients were cigarettes prior to illicit drugs. While previous studies have consistently documented that the use of an earlier substance in the gateway sequence predicts progression to use of later substances. The recommendations from the studies were focusing on drug prevention in Thai children.

Biography

He completed bachelor degree in Law on 2006. After finished I had experience in Research about Drug, substances, game and Internet addict. Then he completed Master degree in Addiction Studies from Mahidol University, Thailand on 2015. Right now he is a researcher at ASEAN Institute for Health Development, Mahidol University, Thailand. My research fields are Policy and community based drug rehabilitation.

Email: narakorn_oknet@hotmail.com