Independent and concurrent cannabis use with alcohol, cigarettes, and other substances among college students: Rates and consequences

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine patterns of concurrent cannabis and other substance use and their differential associations with cannabis-related problems and academic outcomes in college students. Participants: Participants were undergraduate students (N = 263; M age = 19.1 years; 61.2% female) who were eligible if they used cannabis at least 3 days in the past month (M = 10.1 days). Method: Substance use, academic-related outcomes, and measures of Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD) severity and problems were obtained in an online survey. Results: The five groups evaluated were cannabis-only users (5.3%), cannabis and alcohol (47.1%), cannabis, alcohol and cigarettes (16.7%), cannabis, alcohol and other substances (14.8%), or all-substances (16%). Cannabis-only and all-substance users reported using cannabis most frequently (ps ≤ .034), but only the latter reported greater CUD severity, problems, and poorer academic outcomes. Discussion: College student polysubstance users may be at increased risk for poorer outcomes compared to cannabis-only users and other groups.

Keywords:

• Academic outcomes
• cannabis use disorder
• college students
• concurrent use
• polysubstance use

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 Florida and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of University of Florida.

Funding

Jillian Rung’s contribution to the manuscript was supported by the UF Substance Abuse Training Center in Public Health from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under Grant [number T32DA035167]. Meredith Berry’s time was supported in part by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Grant [number K01DA052673]. Ali Yurasek’s contribution to the manuscript was supported by the NIDA under Grant [number K23 DA046565-01]. These awards did not directly fund the present research. NIDA had no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.

Notes

1 This difference was not significant when controlling for course credits (F(4,235) = 2.113, p = .08. adj. R² =.037