It seems that school programs meant to help prevent young people from getting into hard drugs like cocaine may need to focus a little more time on the use of alcohol. According to a study from the Journal of School Health, alcohol is the most likely gateway.
“Some of these earlier iterations needed to be fleshed out,” Adam Barry said. “That’s why we wanted to study this. The latest form of the gateway theory is that it begins with [marijuana] and moves on finally to what laypeople often call ‘harder drugs.’ As you can see from the findings of our study, it confirmed this gateway hypothesis, but it follows progression from licit substances, specifically alcohol, and moves on to illicit substances.” He also notes that rates of marijuana and tobacco use were virtually the same.
Here is a link to more information.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/05/study-the-gateway-drug-is-alcohol-not-marijuana/