American adults typically don’t get their information about about marijuana from government or medical sources, instead relying mostly on friends and family, according to a new study that was partially funded by a federal agency.
The nationally representative survey of 1,161 adults found that government agencies were the least popular source of cannabis-related information (4.7 percent in the probability-weighted results). And while health and medical care providers were also among the least common sources, at 9.3 percent, they were higher on the list than budtenders (8.6 percent).
The most popular sources of marijuana information, meanwhile, were friends and family (35.6 percent) and websites (33.7 percent).
The study, which received support from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and was published this month in the Journal of Cannabis Research, concludes that most people “draw healthcare information about cannabis from friends and family or online, with very few consulting their healthcare provider or government agencies.”
Notably, people who reported using cannabis for medical reasons were significantly more likely than others to cite healthcare professionals as a source of their marijuana-related information compared to other respondents (16.4 percent versus 5.2 percent, respectively).
Given the trend toward liberalization of cannabis policies in the U.S.—and what the paper describes as potentially “broad effects on public health outcomes related to cannabis” if marijuana is moved from Schedule I to Schedule III of the federal Controlled Substances Act—the paper urges more attention to ensuring healthcare providers are educated on cannabis-related matters and that government messaging is handled with care.
“As cannabis accessibility and legality is increasing,” it says, “there is a strong need for better clinician education, public outreach strategies, and improved communication between patients and clinicians about cannabis.”
NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano said of the new survey findings that cannabis use “is not a new phenomenon and is not going away” and that sources like healthcare providers and government agencies have a responsibility to seek out and provide accurate information.
“Historically, government-affiliated sources have either embellished or outright lied about marijuana and its effects,” he said. “It’s no wonder that the public doesn’t consider them to be credible sources for marijuana-related information.”
Healthcare providers, Armentano added, “have a responsibility to keep up with cannabis-related sciences and trends so that they can engage with their patients, just as they would stay informed and provide advice regarding any other number of behaviors that potentially impact their patients’ health and well being.”
Indeed, the new paper’s authors wrote that their findings show that “insufficient physician education may exacerbate misinformation about cannabis.”
“Surveys and qualitative studies demonstrate that many physicians and medical students desire further relevant training (especially during medical school),” it notes, citing past reports, “but only 9% of medical schools in 2016 offered medical cannabis-specific curricula.”
Of the 1,161 people surveyed by the research team—consisting of authors from the University of Michigan’s Psychedelics Center and its schools of medicine and public health, as well as from Legacy Research Institute in Portland, Oregon—27 percent overall said they’d used marijuana in the past year.
Results showed that people who reported past-year use were more likely to report getting information from “all information sources except government agencies and popular media articles.”
A separate study into the Reddit community r/saplings as a source of marijuana information, meanwhile, found that youth seeking out information on the subreddit see it as a “viable outlet” despite it often having a lack of verifiable facts.
The shortcoming could reveal an opportunity, said authors of that study, noting that interventions—including, potentially, on Reddit itself—that “provide understandable and accurate information in accessible formats may increase young people’s ability to access and practice harm reduction.”
Meanwhile, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) recently published a wide-ranging series of scientific reports on marijuana and cancer as part of an effort to better understand “core questions” around patients’ relationship with cannabis—including sourcing, cost, behavioral patterns, patient–provider communications and reasons for use.
A separate federally funded study published by the American Medical Association found recently that majorities of both pain patients and doctors say insurance companies should cover medical marijuana. That includes nearly two thirds (64 percent) of pain patients and just over half (51 percent) of physicians.
Another recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that most marijuana consumers use the drug to treat health issues at least sometimes, but very few consider themselves medical marijuana users.
“Less than half the patients who used cannabis reported using it for medical reasons, even though the majority of patients reported cannabis use to manage a health-related symptom,” authors of that study wrote. “Given these discrepant findings, it may be more useful for clinicians to ask patients what symptoms they are using cannabis for rather than relying on patient self-identification as a recreational or medical cannabis user.”
“This aligns with another study that found that this type of cannabis use is clinically underrecognized,” they added, “and without specifically screening for medical cannabis use, clinicians may not ask and patients often do not disclose their use.”
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Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.
American adults typically don’t get their information about about marijuana from government or medical sources, instead relying mostly on friends and family, according to a new study that was partially funded by a federal agency. The nationally representative survey of 1,161 adults found that government agencies were the least popular source of cannabis-related information (4.7 Read More