Children’s Knowledge of Cannabis and Other Substances in States with Different Cannabis Use Regulations

Abstract

Background: Public acceptance of cannabis continues to increase across the US, yet there has been little research on how cannabis legalization affects young children. The present study compared knowledge of cannabis and other substances among children living in states with different cannabis laws and examined whether the association between such substance knowledge and externalizing behavior varies by state cannabis regulations. Methods: Participants were from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development^SM Study (ABCD Study®) at the baseline assessment (N = 11,875, ages 9–11, collected from 2016 to 2018). Chi-square difference tests were used to compare nested models testing group differences in knowledge of substances and the association between externalizing disorder/behavior and substance knowledge as a function of state legality of cannabis use (recreational, medical, low THC/CBD, none). Results: Children living in states with more permissive cannabis laws had a greater knowledge of cannabis and reported more alcohol experimentation. In contrast, knowledge regarding alcohol, tobacco, and other illicit drugs was not greater in children from states with more permissive cannabis laws. Externalizing disorder/behavior was not significantly associated with cannabis knowledge in any group and not significantly different across groups. The association between externalizing disorder/behavior and illicit drug knowledge was significant only in states with the recreational and medical use laws but did not differ significantly across groups. Conclusion: Children living in environments with more permissive cannabis regulations have greater knowledge of cannabis, but not other substances, and report more experimentation with alcohol.

Keywords:

• Cannabis
• children
• policies

Declaration of interest

The authors have no other conflicts of interest to declare.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Institutes of Health grants DA017637. Data used in the preparation of this article were obtained from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study (https://abcdstudy.org), held in the NIMH Data Archive (NDA). This is a multisite, longitudinal study designed to recruit more than 10,000 children age 9–10 and follow them over 10 years into early adulthood. The ABCD Study is supported by the National Institutes of Health and additional federal partners under award numbers U01DA041022, U01DA041028, U01DA041048, U01DA041089, U01DA041106, U01DA041117, U01DA041120, U01DA041134, U01DA041148, U01DA041156, U01DA041174, U24DA041123, U24DA041147, U01DA041093, and U01DA041025. A full list of supporters is available at https://abcdstudy.org/federal-partners.html. A listing of participating sites and a complete listing of the study investigators can be found at https://abcdstudy.org/Consortium_Members.pdf. ABCD consortium investigators designed and implemented the study and/or provided data but did not necessarily participate in analysis or writing of this report. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of NIH or ABCD consortium investigators. The ABCD data repository grows and changes over time. The ABCD data used in this report came from DOI: 10.15154/1519007. National Institute on Drug Abuse.