Mode of Marijuana Use among Young Adults: Perceptions, Use Profiles, and Future Use

Abstarct

Background

Given changes in marijuana regulations, retail, and products and potential impact on use, we examined young-adult perceptions of different modes of use, the proportion using via different modes (e.g. smoking, vaping, ingesting), and associations with the use levels and stability of use over time.

Methods

We analyzed baseline and one-year follow-up survey data (Fall 2018–2019) among 3,006 young adults (ages 18–34) across six metropolitan areas (Atlanta, Boston, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Oklahoma City, San Diego, Seattle). Measures included marijuana use frequency and mode, sociodemographics, other substance use, and social influences.

Results

Participants’ rated the following modes of use as: least harmful/addictive: topicals, oral pills, joint/bowl; most socially acceptable: joint/bowl, edibles/beverages, vaporized; and most harmful/addictive and least acceptable: wrapped, vaped, or waterpipe/bong with tobacco. Baseline past-month use prevalence was 39.2% (n = 1,178). Most frequent use mode was smoking (joints/bowls/cigar papers; 54.0%), vaping (21.8%), via pipe/bong (15.1%), and ingesting (9.1%). Multinomial logistic regression indicated that participants in states with legalized marijuana retail were at greater odds for using via modes other than smoking; participants more frequently using were at greater odds for using via pipe/bong (vs. smoking) (ps < .001). Regarding most frequent mode across time, most consistent was pipe/bong (53.3%), followed by smoking (49.3%), vaping (44.5%), and ingesting (32.9%). Past-month abstinence at follow-up was most common among those originally ingesting (34.3% abstinent), followed by smoking (23.6%), vaping (18.8%), and pipe/bong (14.8%).

Conclusions

Ongoing surveillance is needed to understand marijuana use patterns over time across different user groups (particularly by mode) and to inform interventions promoting abstinence.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

Data availability statement

Data not publicly available (available upon request).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the US National Cancer Institute (R01CA215155-01A1; P I: Berg). Dr. Berg is also supported by other US National Cancer Institute funding (R01CA179422-01; PI: Berg; R01CA239178-01a1; MP Is: Berg, Levine), the US National Institute of Health/Fogarty International Center (R01TW010664-01; MP Is: Berg, Kegler), and the US National Institute of Environmental Health Science/Fogarty (D43EW030927-01; MPIs: Berg, Marsit, Sturua).