Janni Leung
All Authors:J. Leung1,2, G.Chan1, D. Stjepanovi?1, J. Y. C. Chung1,2, Wayne Hall1, D. Hammond3. 1National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research, The University of Queensland, Australia; 2School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Australia; 3School of Public Health and Health Systems, University of Waterloo, Canada
Background
There has been increasing attention on cannabis use for medical purposes. We examined the epidemiology of self-reported cannabis use for medical purposes by 1) estimating its prevalence; 2) compare gender and age differences; and 3) investigate what reasons they were used to manage.
Methods
Participants included 27,169 respondents (aged 16-65) who completed Wave 1 of The International Cannabis Policy Study (ICPS) conducted across Canada and the United States in 2018 via online surveys. Cannabis policy conditions were: “US legal-recreational” (legal for both recreational and medical use), “US legal-medical only”, “US-illegal”, and “Canada-medical only”.
Results
The overall prevalence of self-reported ever cannabis use for medical purposes was 27%, with similar rates by sex and highest prevalence in young adults. Prevalence was higher in US legal-recreational states (34%) than US illegal states (23%), US legal-medical only states (25%), and Canada (25%). The most common physical health reasons include use to manage pain (53%), sleep (46%), headaches/migraines (35%), appetite (22%), and nausea/vomiting (21%). For mental health reasons, the most common were for anxiety (52%), depression (40%), and PTSD/trauma (17%). There were 11% who reported using cannabis for managing other drug or alcohol use and 4% for psychosis.
Conclusions
A substantial proportion of the North American population self-reported cannabis use for medical purposes for a variety of medical reasons, including those living in jurisdictions without legal markets. Further research is needed to understand the safety and efficacy of these forms of medical cannabis use.