Abstract
Purpose
This study examined levels of substance-specific risk factors such as perception of harm from substance use among young adults in a range of cannabis-permissive environments. The main objective was to inform future preventive interventions aimed at reducing cannabis use in the context of increasingly permissive environments.
Methods
Data came from the Community Youth Development Study (CYDS) collected in 2016 when participants were about 23 years old (n = 1,722 participants residing in 46 U.S. states). Young adults self-reported their perceptions about the harms related to cannabis, alcohol, and cigarette use; attitudes about and ease of access to cannabis and other substances; and perceived wrongfulness and social acceptability of cannabis, alcohol, and cigarette use and of selling of cannabis and other illegal drugs.
Results
Young adults in more permissive cannabis contexts reported higher levels of all cannabis-specific risk factors (e.g., greater access to and more favorable attitudes about cannabis use), except for perception of harm from regular cannabis use. However, permissiveness of the cannabis environment was not associated with heightened levels of risk factors for other substance use (such as alcohol, cigarettes, and opioids).
Conclusions
Future preventive interventions for young adults living in more permissive cannabis contexts may need to focus on cannabis-specific risk factors in particular and go beyond considerations of harm from regular use. Future studies should replicate these findings with other samples.
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Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge CYDS panel participants for their contribution to this study, the Social Development Research Group (SDRG) Survey Research Division for their hard work collecting data, Ms. Elena Riederer for her assistance with preparation of the early draft of this manuscript, and Ms. Tanya Williams and Ms. Diane Christiansen for their editorial and administrative support.
An earlier version of this article was presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Prevention Research held May 28–31, 2019, in San Francisco, CA.
Declaration of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.