Motives of marijuana use to promote positive experiences For motives of marijuana use to promote positive experiences, none of the motives were directly, significantly associated with any of our outcomes of interest. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis as well as with what has previously been documented in the literature. Social motives, as well as motives of enhancement and expansion, which can also be conceptualized as motives of use to promote positive experiences have not previously been found to be associated with psychological distress . Furthermore, in a study by Brodbeck et al. , no differences were found between young adults who use marijuana for social motives and young adults who do not use marijuana with regards to psychological distress. Although no indirect associations between motives of marijuana use and psychological symptoms were found, there was a direct, significant association between the motive of celebration and past 90 days use. The association between the motive of celebration and use, but its lack of association with problematic outcomes has previously been documented in the alcohol literature and the marijuana literature . This would therefore imply that some motives of marijuana use are associated with increases in use but are not associated with mental health outcomes. Tying back to the underlying assumptions driving this work, when marijuana use is motivated by a desire to celebrate, the use behavior it gives rise to is not associated with mental health outcomes. This suggests that, in this sample, there may not be any mental health consequences resulting from celebratory driven use. Other motives of use,hydroponic shelf system namely those to avoid negative experiences, are more relevant to the associations between motives of marijuana use and mental health.
Motives for avoidance of negative experiences Results from the multiple linear regressions indicate that only the coping motive of use is significantly associated with symptoms of depression, symptoms of anxiety, and overall psychological distress. The association is such as that the more use is driven by coping, the more severe the symptoms of depression, symptoms of anxiety and psychological distress. This finding replicates what has previously been documented in the literature. Previous work has, in fact, demonstrated that a coping motive of marijuana use predicted anxious arousal and anhedonic symptoms of depression in a sample of young adults , as well as internalizing and externalizing symptoms in a sample of high school students , and was negatively associated with mental health functioning, whereas mental health functioning decreased with an increase in coping motives, in a sample of middle age individuals who use marijuana for medical purposes . The significant, direct, association between coping motives of marijuana use and symptoms of depression, symptoms of anxiety, and overall psychological distress fits with the concept of avoidance coping which includes both cognitive and behavioral strategies and is “oriented towards denying, minimizing, or otherwise avoiding dealing directly with stressful demands” . In other words, avoidance coping can be summed as behaviors one engages in to avoid dealing with a stressor. Although avoidance strategies may seem desirable because they engender reductions in stress and prevent paralyzing anxiety , avoidance coping is maladaptive and is not associated with desirable long-term outcomes. Avoidance coping has been associated with lower likelihood of remission in depressed patients and increased distress among other outcomes . The coping motive of use has also previously been associated with increased past thirty days use and progression to problematic cannabis use .
Work done on coping and marijuana use in adolescents has demonstrated higher levels of depressive symptoms and greater lifetime and past 12 months marijuana use as well as increases in negative mood for those who engaged in avoidant coping through marijuana use . The conformity motive was negatively associated to past 90 days marijuana use, which was in turn negatively associated with symptoms of depression, generating positive indirect effect for the motive of conformity on symptoms of depression through past 90 days use. It was expected that the conformity motive of use would be associated with use given that use is a common behavior in our sample and that it is the least endorsed motive by the participants in the sample, or to be positively associated with marijuana use as the desire to conform would engender use. Previous work done on motives of marijuana use that included the conformity motive found conformity to be positively associated with use , not associated with use , or to be a negative predictor of use . Clearly, there is no consensus on the association between motive of conformity and marijuana use, let alone its relationship with mental health outcomes. It is possible that this finding is a Type I error, as there is no logical or theoretical way to explain it. Gender was found to moderate the associations between the motive of social anxiety with symptoms of depression and overall psychological distress. For both outcomes, the effect is worse for women compared to men. The more women endorse social anxiety as a motive for marijuana use, the worse of their mental health is as it pertains to symptoms of depression and overall psychological distress. Endorsing the social anxiety motive of use seems to have no effect on the mental health of men with regards to symptoms of depression and overall psychological distress.
This is contrary to what has thus far been documented in the literature. As previously discussed, for men, the social anxiety marijuana motive of use is akin to a social avoidance coping motive compared to a more social/celebratory motive for women . Social anxiety motive of use has therefore been tied to greater severity of problematic marijuana use in men but not women . Thus, it was expected that the association between social anxiety motive of marijuana use and symptoms of depression or psychological distress would be worse for men compared to women. Surprisingly, there was no finding of significant gender differences in the associations between motives of marijuana use and symptoms of depression. As illustrated in Figure 4.25, using the coping motive as an example, plotting the trends for men and women reveals an interaction effect where the effect of the coping motive of use on symptoms of depression appears to be worse for men than women. However, the lack of a significant interaction term in this association is likely due to insufficient power resulting from the small sample size. Medical use motives Interestingly, given the make-up of our sample, none of the medical motives of use were significantly directly associated with any of the mental health outcomes of interest. It is plausible that this is the case because using as a natural remedy, or using to combat nausea can be conceptualized as a form of coping. In a study of individuals who use marijuana for medical reasons, where no medical motives of marijuana use were specified, coping was significantly associated with greater health functioning but poorer mental health functioning . Furthermore, there was no finding that mediation or gender effect for the coping motive of cannabis drying racks commercial and associated outcomes, only direct effects indicating that the association is strong and not gender dependent. The marijuana motive of use for pain was positively associated with past 90 days use, which was in turn negatively associated with symptoms of depression, thus generating a negative indirect effect. There is some evidence that marijuana use might be beneficial for pain . It is therefore plausible that an individual might be driven to use for pain relief purposes and that, in turn, relief from pain might be associated with alleviated symptoms of depression. The association between the marijuana use motive of attention to daily number of hits is positive and the association between daily number of hits and symptoms of depression is negative, thus generating a negative indirect effect between the attention motive of marijuana use and symptoms of depression through daily number of hits. Work done as it pertains to attention and marijuana use has typically investigated whether marijuana use negatively affects attention. Yet, in work done by Gruber et al. , medical marijuana patients demonstrated some improvements on measures of executive functioning post consumption of cannabinoids but not post tetrahydrocannabinols consumption. This points to potentially beneficial effects of CBD but not THC consumption for attention. This effect is hypothesized to occur as CBD use could lessen symptoms of sleep disturbance, symptoms of depression, and impulsivity, thus resulting in improved cognitive functioning . Therefore, in our sample, use might be motivated by a desire to improve attention with the expectation that use will help alleviate distracting factors such as pain, and in turn, help alleviate symptoms of depression. This is however contradicted by other studies that have demonstrated impairments in attention and concentration post THC administration .
Surprisingly, there was a small, negative, significant association between past 90 days marijuana use and symptoms of depression, and daily number of marijuana hits and symptoms of depression. However, the magnitude of the effect is somewhat negligible, being almost zero. Furthermore, this finding is contrary to previous work in the literature exploring the associations between marijuana use and depression as regular use of marijuana has previously been associated with an increased risk of depression and anxiety . Although user group, as a control variable, was not significantly associated with depressive symptomatology for either mediators, it is plausible to speculate that given the medical nature of use reported by participants in the sample, it could account for this association. If in fact use alleviates the burden of a medical condition, then one could report feeling less depressed. The findings discussed above have implications for both the literature and prevention/intervention strategies. Although not representative of the young adult population at large, this sample differs in its composition than those most currently published in the literature. This is a sample of young adults that use marijuana very heavily, both with regards to past 90 days use and to daily number of marijuana hits. On average, this sample reported using marijuana 69 out of 90 days. Participants also reported a daily average of 23 hits. This is a significant departure compared to other samples considered to be composed of heavy users where, for example, participants reported using marijuana approximately 6 days per week but with an average of 4 hits per day . This sample also distinguishes itself from others in the literature as it is composed of young adults who use marijuana solely for medical reasons, young adults who use marijuana solely for recreational reasons, and young adults who report using marijuana for both medical and recreational reasons. This sample, although non-random, does provide us with a wide range of individuals who use marijuana for different reasons in a context of legalized medical marijuana. Work on marijuana use has predominantly been conducted in settings where marijuana use is not legal and although such behavior is illegal for about half of our sample, it is a legal behavior for the other half. Although the data come from a convenience sample, they provide preliminary evidence regarding the associations between motives of marijuana use and mental health outcomes.This sample also differs from most with regards to sociodemographic characteristics. For instance, most of the other samples in the literature on motives of marijuana use and associated outcomes are under 21 years of age. This is relevant as it has been hypothesized that individuals can mature out of drug use whereas marijuana use declines as adult responsibilities increase . Furthermore, this sample is not composed primarily of Whites as has been the case to date in the literature, nor is it solely composed of undergraduate students. Only about half of the individuals in this sample report some form of college level education. This latter point is especially relevant when we consider that marijuana use is associated with limited academic achievement . However, not unlike college samples, individuals in our sample primarily report using marijuana for enhancement purposes , in addition to health/medical motives. When examining the indicators that compose each motive and while considering our definition and conceptualization of motives of use, it could be argued that some of the factors generated by the confirmatory factor analyses do not completely fit with some of the conceptualization of motives of use found in the literature.