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Recreational Marijuana Legalization, Local Retail Availability, and Alcohol and Marijuana Use and Co-Use among California High School Students.

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OBJECTIVE This study examined whether recreational marijuana legalization (RML) and local retail availability were associated with marijuana and alcohol use and co-use among adolescents. METHOD We investigated associations between RML… Click to show full abstract

OBJECTIVE This study examined whether recreational marijuana legalization (RML) and local retail availability were associated with marijuana and alcohol use and co-use among adolescents. METHOD We investigated associations between RML and past 30-day marijuana and alcohol use and co-use, and moderating effects of retail availability of marijuana and alcohol, using data from the 2010-11 to 2018-19 California Healthy Kids Surveys (CHKS) of 9th and 11th grade students in 38 California cities. Multi-level mixed-effects logistic regression analyses were conducted, controlling for secular trends and student and city demographics. Additional analyses examined associations of RML and retail availability with co-use among subgroups of drinkers and marijuana users. RESULTS For the full sample, RML was inversely associated with alcohol use, but was not significantly associated with marijuana use or co-use with alcohol. However, significant interactions between RML and marijuana outlet density showed there were increases in marijuana and alcohol co-use and alcohol following legalization in cities with higher densities of marijuana outlets. RML was positively associated with co-use among non-heavy and heavy drinkers, but inversely related to co-use among occasional and frequent marijuana users. A significant positive interaction between RML and marijuana outlet density indicated that RML was associated with increases in co-use for occasional marijuana users in cities with higher densities of marijuana outlets. CONCLUSIONS RML was associated with increases in marijuana and alcohol co-use and alcohol use among California high school students, particularly those in cities with higher densities of retail cannabis stores, though this varied across alcohol and marijuana use subgroups.

Keywords: use among; alcohol use; retail availability; alcohol; marijuana; use

Journal Title: Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs
Year Published: 2023

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