SAN DIEGO CA – Some American teens and young adults who use cannabis, more commonly known as marijuana, are more likely to become regular tobacco users … even if they haven’t previously tried tobacco, a new study suggests.
Researchers at the University of California San Diego compared their results to similar people who do not use cannabis. They estimate possibly 13% of new tobacco use is attributable to the drug, and pose that it “may act as a gateway to tobacco use.”
The possibility could overturn a previous theory about the relationship between smoking tobacco and use of the drug. Since the 1970s, when tobacco smoking was much more prevalent, almost all people who used cannabis had smoked tobacco first. That led many to consider that tobacco smoking was a gateway to cannabis use.
A Gateway from Cannabis to Tobacco?
Tobacco use among teens and young adults has declined considerably in the United States since the 1970s. Cannabis use, however, has not, researchers note. That prompted them to investigate whether a reverse gateway might exist from cannabis to regular tobacco use.
Its members mined data from a regular survey of U.S. households, called the “Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health.” Then they looked at the association of cannabis use by teens and young adults in 2017, and their likelihood of regular tobacco use four years later in 2021.
After a variety of control comparisons, the analysis attributed 13.0% of total new regular tobacco use to cannabis. When extrapolated across the entire U.S. population, the authors estimate that 509,800 fewer U.S. teens and young adults would have progressed to regular tobacco use in 2021 if they had not had previous experience of cannabis in 2017.
The research team recognizes several limitations in its observational study. It also acknowledges it cannot establish cause and effect. They do conclude that cannabis use by U.S. youths is a major risk factor for progression to regular tobacco use. Cannabis prevention should be included as a key goal in tobacco control programs, they add.
This study was funded in part by the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program of the University of California, and the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health.
Photo by José Antonio Luque Olmedo on iStock, provided by UC San Diego via Newswise
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