Is pre-college interpersonal trauma associated with cannabis use?

Abstract

Objective

To examine the prevalence and correlates of lifetime cannabis use (i.e., experimental [use 1-5 times] and non-experimental [use ≥ 6 times]) in relation to interpersonal trauma (IPT) above and beyond relevant covariates.

Participants

A large (n = 9,889) representative sample of college students at an urban university in the southeastern part of the United States

Methods

Participants were 4 cohorts of first-year college students who completed measures of demographics, cannabis, alcohol, nicotine, and IPT. Associations were estimated using multinomial logistic regressions.

Results

The prevalence of lifetime cannabis use was 28.1% and 17.4% for non-experimental and experimental cannabis use, respectively. IPT was significantly associated with experimental and non-experimental cannabis use above and beyond effects of sex, race, cohort, alcohol, and nicotine.

Conclusions

Results show that cannabis use is prevalent among college students and is associated with IPT above and beyond associations with sex, race, and other substance use.

Keywords:

• Cannabis
• college students
• substance use
• trauma

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States of America and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of Virginia Commonwealth University.

Additional information

Funding

Spit for Science has been supported by Virginia Commonwealth University, P20 AA017828, R37AA011408, K02AA018755, P50 AA022537, and K01AA024152 from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), and UL1RR031990 from the National Center for Research Resources and National Institutes of Health Roadmap for Medical Research. This research was also supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under award number U54DA036105 and the Center for Tobacco Products of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views of the NIH or the FDA. Data from this study are available to qualified researchers via dbGaP (phs001754.v2.p1). We would like to thank the Spit for Science participants for making this study a success, as well as the many University faculty, students, and staff who contributed to the design and implementation of the project. Preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by grants T32MH020030 from the National Institute of Mental Health and F31DA048559-01A1 from the NIDA (Hicks) (Mr. Hicks’ time was initially supported by T32MH020030 and is currently supported by F31DA048559), K01AA028058-01 (Bountress) and K02AA023239 (Amstadter) from the NIAAA. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.