Cannabis has spent decades carrying the label of a “gateway drug.” For most young people , the phrase feels outdated and inaccurate: a relic left over from Harold's discussions and stern talks with our parents that convinced us one joint would inevitably lead to heroin. But by the time we reach university, if any of us still believed whatever Harold was waffling on about, that assumption about weed being some gateway to trouble is turned on its head.
Student culture runs on challenging the negative assumptions many of us were raised to hold about weed. Marijuana “isn’t dangerous”, “isn’t addictive”, and “definitely isn't a gateway” to anything. We joke that you “can’t be addicts while at uni,” and that it’s all temporary – just a few messy years before everyone sorts themselves out, gets a job and a family. But if we were honest about how much we drink, smoke or rely on something else to get through the week, that confidence starts to look a little shaky. What feels normal in your Dundas St flat might sound very different in a doctors office.
In past research, weed was popularly thought to be only psychologically habit-forming. Nowadays, we know that frequent, long-term use of weed can lead to physiological dependence, a distinct withdrawal syndrome, and addiction. Weed can increase the risk of schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and chronic psychosis. It can limit brain development, and while it may help you fall asleep faster in the short term, regular or long-term use often leads to lower sleep efficiency, frequent awakenings, and less restorative sleep. 16% of users aged 18–25 may meet the criteria for Cannabis Use Disorder (hint: that’s us). But still, so many people smoke weed regularly. It’s a fun drug, and I truly believe it causes less harm than other much more normalised drugs, such as alcohol.
The problem isn't that students are spiralling into hard drug use. Most aren’t. The reality we find ourselves in is so much less dramatic, and in some ways so much more uncomfortable and hard to identify as problematic. For many, drugs don't feel like an escape from the mundane – it’s that life feels improved on them.
That’s what makes this idea of a “gateway drug” so interesting. Not because weed inevitably leads to something stronger, but because it introduces us to the idea that everyday experiences can be enhanced. Music sounds exceptional, conversations stretch longer, food (even shitty flat meals) taste better than ever, and even doing nothing can feel like a fun way to spend your evenings. And when you wake up in the morning, there’s no hangover. It's the perfect thing to enhance your night (or day), with little fear of fucking up your academic commitments the next day.
Once this realisation happens, returning to baseline can feel strange. It's not painful or unbearable, it's just … flat. Sobriety isn't necessarily difficult because something is wrong, but because nothing is particularly right either. Life without some kind of enhancement can start to feel like a lesser version of life itself. It feels hard to make it through a dull day when you know the exact way to fix it – especially when your social calendar revolves around it.
And that’s what makes cutting back so difficult. Every time you try to take a break from smoking, the free time you’re left with feels underutilised at best, and like watching paint dry at worst. The last time I took an extensive tolerance break, the first week was agonising. I spent hours tossing and turning in bed trying to fall asleep. Meals were a chore, forcing calories down my throat despite the nausea that came with not having a pre-meal cone.
That’s the biggest trick about weed. Despite it not being “addictive”, once getting stoned every night becomes your new normal, cutting back becomes onerous. Like me, it could be struggling to eat as much, or sleep. Maybe you feel a bit more anxious, or nights out aren’t as fun when you don’t have a joint at pres. You might feel constant FOMO from your flatmates sparking up around you, and fail completely in trying to cut back. I realise these could all be considered symptoms of withdrawal.
Eventually, things got easier, but I found the hardest thing to overcome was neither sleeping nor eating: it was boredom. That’s the one thing that nobody wants to admit about weed. Once you’ve gotten yourself into a committed relationship with smoking, life becomes boring when you’re not high. Even doing nothing feels significant and stimulating after you’ve had a toke. And if that’s not representative of a gateway into drug dependence, I don’t know what is.
The thing that sucks, despite recognising the sneaky way that weed disguises itself as “not being a gateway drug”, is that I don’t want to give it up altogether – that seems too hard and honestly no fun. But I do want to fix my relationship with weed so that it is something that I can enjoy socially on the weekends, not something I rely on just to get through a Tuesday night. Maybe there’s a middle ground. If I’ve learned anything about the university experience, it's that young adults are really good at being degenerates a few days a week and then locking back into real life at the last possible moment.
But facing this reality is harder than it sounds. No one wants to admit they have an issue. It’s a lot easier to joke about being “a bit of a stoner” than it is to admit that being sober sometimes feels…dull. When you're used to everything being slightly enhanced – music, food, even doing nothing – normal life can feel like a downgrade. And when your flatmates are lighting up, Trailer Park Boys is on, and you’ve got nothing else planned, it’s not exactly a fair fight.
While talking to a clinician in the drug and alcohol space, one thing that stood out to me was how much addiction is tied to the environment you’re in rather than just the substance itself. When everything around you (your friends, your flat, your routine) is built around smoking, cutting back isn't just about willpower. It's about trying to do something different from the people you spend the most time and identify with. And fuck – that is way harder than just saying “I’ll smoke less.”
There is also the whole justification thing. You can tell yourself you're doing fine because you're not as bad as someone else. Or because it's “just weed”, and at least you're not doing hard drugs. But deep down, most people kind of know when it's become more than just a social thing. Using it to sleep, to eat kai, to relax, to feel ‘normal’ – at some point, that starts to look a lot like dependence, even if it doesn't feel like it fits the stereotype of addiction. Addiction doesn’t just look like being sent to rehab, losing everyone around you, or ending up passed out on the street, especially in an environment like North D.
One thing the clinician mentioned that stuck with me is how they don't want to wait for people to hit rock bottom. Instead, counsellors use screening tools like the Substance and Choice Scale (SACS), which basically looks at how much your substance abuse is starting to impact your life, rather than just about how often you’re using. Things like sleep, hauora, routine and relationships are often the first to take a toll when drug use gets out of hand, so using this metric can help people realise how big of an ‘issue’ substances are, relative to their life. It’s not about labelling someone an “addict,” it's more about catching the issue before it derails your life any further.
In the end, not everyone's “gateway” looks the same. For some people it does lead further. I think about a friend from back home who started going in and out of rehab, first for weed and psychedelics, later for meth and crack. That's the version of the story we are taught to fear. But it’s not the most common one.
The common version is quieter – at least amongst tauira, that is. It's staying in the same place, doing the same thing, night after night, because sobriety feels like a worse option. It might not be rock bottom, but it still sucks.
Maybe that is what the “gateway” really is. Not necessarily a path to harder drugs, but a space you get stuck in. A constant back-and-forth between wanting to cut back and not wanting to give up something that makes life feel better. If that really is the case, the question isn't whether weed is a gateway drug, it's whether you are ok with where it's taken you.
If any of this hits close to home, it might be worth talking to someone about it. You don’t have to be at rock bottom or spiralling for it to count – sometimes just feeling a bit out of control is enough. In Aotearoa you can call or text 1737 to talk to a trained counsellor for free. For something specific to substance use, Alcohol and Drug Line (0800 787 797) is there for advice, support, or even just a chat. Student Health also has so many great resources. It's all low pressure, and a lot easier than trying to figure it out on your own.
