College students use more marijuana in states where it's legal, but they binge drink less

January 13, 2020

Science Daily/Oregon State University

Marijuana use among college students has been trending upward for years, but in states that have legalized recreational marijuana, use has jumped even higher.

An Oregon State University study published today in Addiction shows that in states where marijuana was legalized by 2018, both occasional and frequent use among college students has continued to rise beyond the first year of legalization, suggesting an ongoing trend rather than a brief period of experimentation.

Overall, students in states with legal marijuana were 18% more likely to have used marijuana in the past 30 days than students in states that had not legalized the drug. They were also 17% more likely to have engaged in frequent use, defined as using marijuana on at least 20 of the past 30 days.

The differences between states with and without legalization escalated over time: Six years after legalization in early-adopting states, students were 46% more likely to have used marijuana than their peers in non-legalized states.

Between 2012 and 2018, overall usage rates increased from 14% to 17% in non-legalized states, but shot up from 21% to 34% in the earliest states to legalize the drug. Similar trends appeared in states that legalized marijuana more recently.

Conducted by Harold Bae from OSU's College of Public Health and Human Sciences and David Kerr from OSU's College of Liberal Arts, this is the first study of college students to look broadly at multiple states that have legalized recreational marijuana and to go beyond the first year following legalization.

It includes data from seven states and 135 colleges where marijuana was legalized by 2018 and from 41 states and 454 colleges where recreational use was not legal.

That scope allowed Bae and Kerr to examine trends in the earliest adopting states as well as more recent adopters -- though, the data for the study is stripped of state- and college-identifying information, so does not speak specifically to any one state or institution.

The data comes from the National College Health Assessment survey from 2008 to 2018, which asks about a wide range of health behaviors including drug and alcohol use and is administered anonymously to encourage students to respond more honestly. More than 850,000 students participated.

Looking at specific demographics, researchers found that the effect was stronger among older students ages 21-26 than minors ages 18-20; older students were 23% more likely to report having used marijuana than their peers in non-legalized states. The effect was also stronger among female students and among students living in off-campus housing, possibly because universities adhere to federal drug laws that still classify marijuana as an illegal substance.

"It's easy to look at the findings and think, 'Yeah, of course rates would increase,'" Kerr said. "But we need to quantify the effects these policy changes are having."

Furthermore, he said, researchers are not finding increases in adolescents' marijuana use following legalization. "So it is surprising and important that these young adults are sensitive to this law. And it's not explained by legal age, because minors changed too."

A recent companion study published in Addictive Behaviors in November by OSU doctoral candidate Zoe Alley along with Kerr and Bae examined the relationship between recreational marijuana legalization and college students' use of other substances.

Using the same dataset, they found that after legalization, students ages 21 and older showed a greater drop in binge drinking than their peers in states where marijuana was not legal. Binge drinking was defined as having five or more drinks in a single sitting within the previous two weeks.

Researchers have not yet tested any hypotheses as to why binge drinking fell, but they have some ideas.

An outside study previously found that illegal marijuana use decreases sharply when people hit 21 -- where there is a sharp increase in alcohol use.

"When you're under 21, all substances are equally illegal," Alley said. "In most states, once you reach 21, a barrier that was in the way of using alcohol is gone, while it's intact for marijuana use. But when marijuana is legal, this dynamic is changed."

Binge drinking has been on the decline among college students in recent years, but dropped more in states that legalized marijuana than in states that did not.

"So in these two studies we saw changes after legalization that really differed by substance," Kerr said. "For marijuana we saw state-specific increases that went beyond the nationwide increases, whereas binge drinking was the opposite: a greater decrease in the context of nationwide decreases."

The magnitude of effect was much larger with marijuana than with any of the other substances, Bae added. "So the changes following recreational marijuana legalization were quite specific to cannabis use."

Future research is needed to see how those trends hold up over time, as additional states legalize marijuana and existing states continue to tweak their current policies, the researchers said.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200113131637.htm

How college students can end up in vicious cycle of substance abuse, poor academics, stress

April 16, 2019

Science Daily/Binghamton University

One negative behavior such as substance abuse or heavy alcohol drinking can lead college students toward a vicious cycle of poor lifestyle choices, lack of sleep, mental distress and low grades, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.

"We used a robust data-mining technique to identify associations between mental distress in college students with substance abuse, sleep, social behaviors, academic attitude and behaviors, and GPA (short-term and long-term as reflective of academic performance)," said Lina Begdache, assistant professor of Health and Wellness Studies at Binghamton University. "Positive behaviors such as abstinence from substance use, studious attitudes and responsibility toward work and family are reflective of a brain chemistry profile that supports mood and maturation of the prefrontal cortex of the brain. The latter matures last and supports impulse and emotional control as well as rationalization of thoughts.

"Interestingly, we identified potential cyclic behaviors that associate with severe mental distress that are linked to a change in brain chemistry that supports substance abuse, poor academic attitude and performance, poor sleep patterns, and neglect of family and work. The novelty of these findings is that we are proposing, based on the neuroscience of these behaviors, that one action may be leading to another until a vicious cycle sets in."

A total of 558 students from different U.S. colleges completed an anonymous survey on academic performance, daytime sleepiness, substance use and mental distress. Low mental distress in college students was associated with no substance abuse, responsible attitude toward learning as well as good academic efforts, high GPA (of above 3.0) and limited daytime sleepiness. Mild mental distress correlated with borderline work neglect and with a marginal negative association with grade-point average. Severe mental distress correlated with substance abuse (including excessive alcohol drinking), extreme daytime sleepiness, poor academic attitude and low GPA. This change in the direction of associations may reflect the neuroanatomical and neurochemical changes triggered by these factors that eventually contribute to mental distress. The results demonstrate that manageable lifestyle factors contribute to mental health in college students, which become potentially cyclic events that may impact academic performance.

"These factors that are associated with mental distress in college students are controllable factors, meaning that proper education of students may reduce risk of mental distress on college campuses, which is on the rise," said Begdache.

Begdache said that "it is important for young adults to recognize that one behavior may lead to a domino effect. For instance, using drugs recreationally, abusing alcohol or using "study" drugs not only affects brain chemistry but may affect diet and sleep, which may further alter brain function and brain maturity. Reduced brain maturity increases impulsivity, reduces emotional control and cognitive functions as well as GPA, eventually increasing mental distress with a potential long-lasting effect," said Begdache. "Brain maturity is a window of time and negative stimuli leave a permanent mark. Higher impulsivity and increased mental distress further support drug use, and a vicious cycle sets in. Luckily, we also identified a virtuous cycle; when young adults follow a healthy lifestyle (diet, sleep and exercise), they are more likely to avoid drugs and alcohol, which supports a normal brain maturity, which is then reflected in a higher GPA and responsible attitudes toward learning, work and family. These vicious or virtuous cycles have a long-lasting effect on brain function, so it is crucial that young adults are aware of the potential harm or benefits of their own actions."

Begdache and her team will next look into the effect of alcohol binging, gender differences in attitudes and mental distress.

"The rationale is that the brain morphology and connectivity between men and women is known to be different and that alcohol metabolism is also different between males and females," said Begdache.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190416081419.htm