New Study Highlights Uptick In Simultaneous Cannabis And Alcohol Use

Using both cannabis and alcohol at the same time so their effects overlap increased among adults in the United States from 2008 to 2019, and this combined use is associated with more risky behaviors, like driving under the influence and heavy patterns of substance use. The uptick has occurred since the legalization of recreational cannabis in some states.

Those are the highlights of a new research conducted by researchers at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and released earlier this month. The study,“Cannabis Recreational Legalization and Prevalence of Simultaneous Cannabis and Alcohol Use in the United States,” was published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

“Our findings are concerning considering that simultaneous cannabis and alcohol use is associated with more negative consequences,” to the individual and society, Priscilla Goncalves, a postdoctoral research fellow in Columbia Mailman School’s Department of Epidemiology and the study’s first author, said in a statement.

Until this study, she added, little had been known about the relationships between recreational cannabis laws and the impact of simultaneous use.

For the study, researchers examined data from more than 800,000 participants aged 12 and older from the 2008–2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which included self-reporting of usage.

The prevalence of simultaneous use among respondents aged 21-30 increased from 9.2 % to 10.4 %. Among participants aged 31-40 years and 41-50 years, prevalence increased from 5 % to 6 % and from 3 % to 4.7 %, respectively, according to the study. But for respondents aged 12–20 years old and 51-year-old and older, there were no significant associations between recreational cannabis laws and changes in simultaneous use.

The greater availability and opportunity to access cannabis through legal supply chains, like at dispensaries present in most states that have legalized it, may explain the uptick, Silvia Martins, professor of epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School and senior author, said in a statement. The study’s findings build upon prior research showing that states that allow dispensaries had a greater likelihood of alcohol-related outcomes in adults aged 21+, Martins added. “Our work confirms these findings and extends them.”

The findings of the study, researchers said, call for developing strategies to reduce harms related to the risky behaviors and negative consequences associated with consuming cannabis and alcohol simultaneously.

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