Exploring Differences in Daily Vaping of Nicotine and Cannabis among People Who Use Drugs in New Zealand

Figures & data

Table 1. Total NZDTS sample demographics and drug use patterns.

Demographics (total sample) (n = 23,500)
Gender	Male	61.0%
	Female	37.7%
	Gender diverse	1.2%
Age	Mean: 29, median: 23, std dev: 13, range: 16–88
Ethnicity	NZ European	73.9%
	Māori	15.9%
	Other	10.0%
Education	High (includes polytechnic and university)	60.2%
	Low (high school and lower)	39.6%
Residence	City	65.0%
	Small town	23.1%
	Rural	11.8%
Main occupation	Employed	62.5%
	Student	25.8%
	Unemployed/parenting/sickness benefit	11.5%
Drug use in the past 6 months	Alcohol	91.3%
	Cannabis	74.8%
	Tobacco	60.9%
	Ecstasy/MDMA	51.0%
	LSD	30.5%
	Cocaine	14.7%
	Methamphetamine	8.9%
	Opioids/Morphine	3.1%
Frequency of cannabis use in past 6 months (n = 16,004)	Daily	39.0%
	Once or twice per week	18.8%
	Monthly	16.1%
	Once or twice (in past 6 months)	26.1%
Frequency of tobacco use in the past 6 months (n = 13,289)	Daily	47.1%
	Once or twice per week	14.1%
	Monthly	13.5%
	Once or twice (in past 6 months)	25.4%
Medicinal cannabis use (n = 15,404)	“All”/“most” cannabis used for medicinal reasons	19.4%
	“Some” cannabis used for medicinal reasons	20.6%
	“Hardly any” of cannabis used for medicinal reasons	9.3%
	“None” of cannabis used for medicinal reasons (=all recreational)	50.6%
Route of cannabis administration (n = 17,567)	Smoked: a joint or dry pipe	75.1%
	Inhaled: through a water bong	57.3%
	Eaten: as a cookie/gummy bear/other edible	33.7%
	Inhaled: through a vaporizer or vape pen	18.2%
	Inhaled: heated spots of oil	13.2%
	Applied to skin (e.g. cream)	5.6%
	Taken by mouth: in a spray form or liquid	3.7%

Table 2. Demographics and vaping patterns among those who vaped in the past 6 months.

Demographic characteristics		Vaped in the past 6 months (n = 9,042)	Daily vaped in the past 6 months (n = 3,501)
Gender	Male	62.0%	66.7%
	Female	36.7%	31.8%
	Gender diverse	1.2%	1.5%
Age	Mean:	26	26
	Median: (std dev)	22 (10)	22(11)
	range:	16–83	16–83
Ethnicity	NZ European	74.6%	75.6%
	Māori	16.2%	15.3%
	Other	9.2%	9.1%
Education	High (includes polytechnic and university)	59%	58%
	Low (high school and lower)	41%	42%
Residence	City	69%	70%
	Small town/rural	31%	30%
Main occupation	Employed	60.2%	60.5%
	Student	30.9%	30.1%
	Unemployed/parenting/sickness benefit	8.9%	9.4%
Drug use in the past 6 months	Alcohol	95.4%	94.3%
	Cannabis	84.3%	86.0%
	Tobacco	75.7%	79.4%
	Ecstasy/MDMA	59.4%	61.2%
	LSD	35.4%	38.9%
	Cocaine	14.5%	14.8%
	Methamphetamine	7.5%	7.4%
	Opioids/Morphine	2.6%	3.3%
Substances vaped in past 6 months	Nicotine e-liquid	85.3%	95.9%
	No nicotine e-liquid	19.2%	10.1%
	Cannabis “dry herb”	13.5%	12.1%
	THC/CBD cannabis e-liquid	7.1%	6.0%
Frequency of vaping in the past 6 months	Daily or near daily	41.8%	100%
	Once or twice per week	16.8%	N/A
	Monthly	12.6%	N/A
	Once or twice (in past 6 months)	28.8%	N/A
Perceived impact of vaping nicotine e-liquids on the level of tobacco smoking*	Never smoked tobacco	13.8%	8.2%
	No impact on level of tobacco smoking	29.7%	9.1%
	Smokeless tobacco	30.9%	39.6%
	Stopped smoking tobacco	21.6%	40.0%
	Smoke more tobacco	3.0%	2.3%
	Started smoking tobacco	1.0%	0.9%

*Only respondents who vaped nicotine e-liquids.

Table 3. Preference for number of vaping products by those who vaped daily in the past 6 months.

Number of vaping products used in the past 6 months by daily vapers	All daily vapers (n = 3,501)	Daily nicotine e-liquid vapers (n = 3,358)	Daily no-nicotine vapers (n = 352)	Daily cannabis e-liquid vapers (n = 211)	Daily “dry herb” cannabis vapers (n = 425)
1	80.1%	79.6%	10.5%	6.2%	18.8%
2	16.5%	16.8%	70.5%	47.4%	56.2%
3	2.8%	2.8%	11.9%	34.6%	19.1%
4	0.7%	0.7%	7.1%	11.9%	5.9%
Multiple products (2+) concurrency:		Dry herb 48.8%	Nicotine 97.1%	Nicotine 96.0%	Nicotine 96.8%
		No nicotine 44.7%	Dry herb 17.8%	Dry herb 43.4%	Cannabis e-liquid 24.9%
		Cannabis e-liquid 27.7%	Cannabis e-liquid 14.3%	No nicotine 22.7%	No nicotine 16.2%

Table 4. Sociodemographic and substance use predictors of daily vaping 4 categories of vaping products (multivariate logistic regression models).

	Nicotine e-liquid					No-nicotine e-liquid						Cannabis e-liquid/oil (CBD and THC/CBD)						Cannabis dry herb
Sample size for the model	3493					3488						2959						2999
Proportion of ”xxx daily vapers”	0.959					0.101						0.069						0.142
Effect	Estimate	p-value	OR	95% CI	95% CI	Estimate	p-value	OR	95% CI	95% CI	Estimate		p-value	OR	95% CI	95% CI	Estimate		p-value	OR	95% CI	95% CI
Intercept	3.27	<.0001				−2.99	<.0001				−3.19		<.0001				−3.14		<.0001
Age: 16–17 vs 36+	1.75	0.0011*	5.77	2.01	16.53	1.28	<.0001*	3.58	2.12	6.06							−0.66		0.0107*	0.52	0.31	0.86
Age: 18–20 vs 36+	2.31	<.0001*	10.12	5.03	20.34	0.84	<.0001*	2.33	1.53	3.54							−0.68		<.0001*	0.51	0.36	0.71
Age: 21–25 vs 36+	1.31	<.0001*	3.72	2.24	6.16	0.62	0.0043*	1.85	1.21	2.82							−0.51		0.0031*	0.60	0.43	0.84
Age: 26–35 vs 36+	0.70	0.0025*	2.01	1.28	3.15	0.42	0.0604	1.52	0.98	2.36							−0.53		0.0041*	0.59	0.41	0.85
Period: Lockdown vs Pre-lockdown											−0.58		0.0023*	0.56	0.39	0.81	−0.26		0.0452*	0.77	0.60	1.00
Gender: Male vs Female											0.42		0.0159*	1.52	1.08	2.13
Education: Low vs High
Occupation: Student vs Employed						−0.22	0.1311	0.81	0.61	1.07
Occupation: Unemployed/others vs Employed						0.42	0.0211*	1.52	1.07	2.17
Ethnicity: Māori vs NZ Euro	0.16	0.5515	1.17	0.69	1.99	0.34	0.0215*	1.41	1.05	1.89							−0.44		0.0119*	0.65	0.46	0.91
Ethnicity: Other vs NZ Euro	−0.65	0.0236*	0.52	0.30	0.92	0.37	0.0468*	1.45	1.01	2.10							0.33		0.0664	1.39	0.98	1.98
City town: City vs Rural/small town
Cannabis frequency of use (continuous)*	−0.68	<.0001*	0.51	0.40	0.64	0.08	0.0436*	1.08	1.00	1.17							0.78		<.0001*	2.18	1.90	2.50
Tobacco frequency of use (continuous)*	0.48	<.0001*	1.62	1.42	1.84												−0.18		<.0001*	0.84	0.78	0.90
Tobacco use last 6 m: Yes vs No						−0.32	0.0280*	0.73	0.54	0.97
Medicinal cannabis: Any/some vs Most/all	0.16	0.4564	1.18	0.77	1.81						0.02		0.9234	1.02	0.71	1.46	0.24		0.0767	1.28	0.97	1.67
Medicinal cannabis: None vs Most/all	0.50	0.0471*	1.65	1.01	2.69						−0.51		0.0114*	0.60	0.41	0.89	−0.45		0.0041*	0.64	0.47	0.87
Medicinal cannabis: Non-user vs Most/all**	−0.03	0.9595	0.97	0.29	3.29
Perception health risk cannabis (continuous)
Perception health risk tobacco (continuous)
P-value Hosmer and Lemeshow Goodness-of-fit	0.262					0.930					0.641						0.789

* – Statistically significant results at p < 0.05. ** – Category excluded for outcomes relating to cannabis vaping products.

Statistically non-significant predictors were removed from the final model (empty cells).