A spicy kind of high: a profile of synthetic cannabinoid users

Abstract

Aims: Over the last 6 years, numerous products have been made available and marketed as “legal highs.” Many of these products contain compounds similar to those within cannabis and function to create a high comparable to that of smoking marijuana. Though governments have regulated these psychoactive compounds, variants are still sold. At this point, little is known about the characteristics of users of synthetic cannabinoids. Design and Participants: A self-report survey instrument was administered to 2349 university students at a large institute in the State of Georgia. Respondents reported on their lifetime, last-year, and last-month synthetic cannabinoid use and demographic characteristics. Results: Males, Whites and Hispanics, users of other substances, and those from more affluent families were significantly more likely to report having used a synthetic cannabinoid. In addition, those that self-identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) were twice as likely to have used synthetic cannabinoids. Conclusions: This research is among the first to detail characteristics of synthetic cannabinoid users in a large random sample. It appears that use of synthetic cannabinoids (synthetic marijuana analogs) continued after initial bans and that use is concentrated in affluent White and Hispanic males and in the LGBT community.

• Synthetic cannabinoids
• synthetic marijuana
• synthetic cannabis
• Spice
• K2

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Office of the Vice President for Research and the Jack N. Averitt College of Graduate Studies at Georgia Southern University for funding the project and research assistants Melanie Hart, Justin Hoyle, Amber Sanders, and Michael Singleton for assistance in collecting and entering the data.

Notes

1. The survey did not distinguish between race and ethnicity; Hispanic, therefore, was treated as a racial category.

2. Family income was assessed through a single item, which asked what category best represents your family’s annual income. Responses ranged from “Under $10 000” (coded 1) to “Over 175 000” (coded 9).

3. The survey utilized the term “synthetic marijuana” rather than the more scientific “synthetic cannabinoid” since that language would be better understood by respondents.

4. Within the data there were relatively few cases with missing data (they did not exceed 5% for any variable). So that all available data could be used, cases with missing data were excluded pairwise. This resulted in slightly different sample sizes for each demographic factor. Family income was the variable with the most missing data (4.04%), but 2254 cases were still available for analysis. All others variables had less than 1.5% missing (2314 valid cases).

5. Living situation, marital status, and employment status were omitted from the table to conserve space.