gateway drug

1. 1.

   a habit-forming drug that is not addictive but its use may lead to the use of other addictive drugs

   “one college athlete recently called beer a gateway drug for young people”

   Broaderdrug of abuse

Questions about gateway drug

What does gateway drug mean?

gateway drug means "a habit-forming drug that is not addictive but its use may lead to the use of other addictive drugs".

Is gateway drug a common word?

gateway drug is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.