Miech Richard A
University of Michigan.
Discov Soc Sci Health. 2022;2. doi: 10.1007/s44155-022-00005-1. Epub 2022 Mar 7.
Adolescents cannabis users are at a substantially elevated risk for use of highly addictive drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and nonmedical use of prescription drugs. Unknown is whether this elevated risk applies to adolescent cannabis users who have never smoked a combustible cigarette, a group that has grown considerably in size in recent years. This study documents the recent growth in the proportion of adolescent cannabis users who abstain from combustible cigarette use, and examines their probability for use of addictive drugs.
Data are annual, cross-sectional, nationally-representative Monitoring the Future surveys of 607,932 U.S. 12 grade students from 1976-2020.
Among ever cannabis users, the percentage who had never smoked a combustible cigarette grew from 11% in 2000 to 58% in 2020. This group had levels of addictive drug use that were 8% higher than their peers. In comparison, adolescents who had ever used cannabis - regardless of whether they had ever smoked a cigarette - had levels of addictive drug use 500% higher than their peers.
Adolescent cannabis users who have not smoked a combustible cigarette have much lower levels of addictive drug use than the group of cannabis users as a whole. These results suggest policies and laws aimed at reducing adolescent prevalence of addictive drugs may do better to focus on cigarette use of adolescent cannabis users rather than cannabis use per se.
青少年大麻使用者使用可卡因、海洛因等高成瘾性药物以及非医疗用途处方药的风险大幅升高。尚不清楚这种升高的风险是否适用于从未吸过可燃香烟的青少年大麻使用者，近年来这一群体的规模显著增长。本研究记录了不吸可燃香烟的青少年大麻使用者比例最近的增长情况，并考察了他们使用成瘾性药物的可能性。
数据来自1976年至2020年对607,932名美国12年级学生进行的年度横断面全国代表性的未来监测调查。
在曾经使用过大麻的人群中，从未吸过可燃香烟的比例从2000年的11%增长到2020年的58%。该群体的成瘾性药物使用水平比同龄人高8%。相比之下，曾经使用过大麻的青少年——无论他们是否吸过烟——其成瘾性药物使用水平比同龄人高500%。
未吸过可燃香烟的青少年大麻使用者的成瘾性药物使用水平远低于整个大麻使用者群体。这些结果表明，旨在降低青少年成瘾性药物流行率的政策和法律可能最好侧重于关注青少年大麻使用者的吸烟情况，而非大麻使用本身。
