New research suggests that pain may be a risk factor for initiating cannabis use in early adulthood. The findings were published in Behavioral Medicine.
“We know that the prevalence of certain chronic pain conditions reaches its peak and then remains stable past emerging adulthood,” said study author Emily L. Zale, assistant professor of psychology at Binghamton University, New York, in a press release.
"[Emerging adults] don’t necessarily get the same attention because the expectation is they’re young and healthy, but we are able to consistently replicate rates of both acute and chronic pain in our emerging adult samples that we would expect based on world-wide data,” she added.
Studies suggest that pain is both a unique risk factor and a motivator for substance use. Until now, however, research investigating the link between cannabis and pain among young adults has largely been cross-sectional, with the only prospective evidence focusing on frequency, quantity, and consequences of using cannabis, and not initiation.
In the current study, researchers thus sought to examine pain as a predictor for initiating cannabis use among adults aged between 18 and 25. To do so, they analyzed data from five annual waves from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study gathered between 2013 and 2019, a period of increasing cannabis legalization for medicinal and recreational use in the country.
Data from 4, 185 emerging adults were included in the analysis. At the start of the study, all participants denied cannabis use, and a tenth reported moderate or severe pain.
After analyzing the data, the researchers found that emerging adults with moderate or severe pain at the start of the study were more likely to start using cannabis, and tended to do so earlier over the next four years, than those with no or low pain.
The findings constitute initial evidence for pain as a risk factor for starting cannabis use in emerging adulthood, wrote the researchers in their paper.
“Future research is needed to identify mechanisms by which pain motivates cannabis initiation and to examine the utility of pain-targeted content in cannabis use prevention and intervention efforts among emerging adults,” they concluded.
Sources: EurekAlert, Behavioral Medicine
