Ehlke Sarah J, Fitzer Samantha A, Rigney Kendra N
Department of Psychology, Old Dominion University.
Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology.
Cannabis. 2025 Feb 1;8(1):1-7. doi: 10.26828/cannabis/2025/000273. eCollection 2025.
Sexual minority women (SMW) have higher rates of cannabis use compared to heterosexual women, which may be partially attributed to lower harm perceptions. However, no study has examined if the association between harm perceptions and cannabis use is stronger for SMW than heterosexual women. This study examined if sexual identity (SMW vs. heterosexual woman) moderated the association between harm perceptions and past 30-day cannabis use among a sample of female young adults (18-25 years old).
Participants were 949 (29.8% SMW; Mean age = 24.33; 92.1% non-Hispanic White) females (99.3% cisgender) recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk who reported weekly cannabis use. Participants reported how many days they used cannabis in the past 30-days and how harmful they perceived cannabis to be to their health (not at all/slightly/somewhat harmful vs. very/extremely harmful). An Analysis of Covariance examined the study aim.
A significantly larger percentage of heterosexual women perceived cannabis to be very/extremely harmful to their health than SMW (45.2% vs. 22.6%). Those who perceived cannabis to be very/extremely harmful reported more frequent cannabis use in the past-30 days. SMW who perceived cannabis to be very/extremely harmful reported more frequent cannabis use relative to those who held lower harm perceptions; there were no significant differences for heterosexual women.
SMW may perceive cannabis as harmful because they may be experiencing health consequences from frequent use. It may be important for interventions and public health campaigns to be tailored specifically to SMW and include information about the potential harms of cannabis use.
与异性恋女性相比，性少数群体女性（SMW）使用大麻的比例更高，这可能部分归因于她们对危害的认知较低。然而，尚无研究探讨对于SMW而言，危害认知与大麻使用之间的关联是否比异性恋女性更强。本研究考察了性取向（SMW与异性恋女性）是否调节了年轻成年女性（18 - 25岁）样本中危害认知与过去30天大麻使用之间的关联。
参与者为949名女性（99.3%为顺性别者），她们通过亚马逊土耳其机器人平台招募而来，每周使用大麻，其中29.8%为SMW（平均年龄 = 24.33岁；92.1%为非西班牙裔白人）。参与者报告了她们在过去30天内使用大麻的天数，以及她们认为大麻对其健康的危害程度（完全无害/略有危害/有些危害与非常/极其危害）。采用协方差分析来检验研究目的。
认为大麻对其健康非常/极其有害的异性恋女性比例显著高于SMW（45.2%对22.6%）。那些认为大麻非常/极其有害的人报告在过去30天内更频繁地使用大麻。认为大麻非常/极其有害的SMW相对于那些危害认知较低的人报告了更频繁的大麻使用；异性恋女性则无显著差异。
SMW可能认为大麻有害，因为她们可能因频繁使用而出现健康问题。针对SMW专门定制干预措施和公共卫生宣传活动可能很重要，且应包含有关大麻使用潜在危害的信息。
