Problems Associated with Using Cannabis to Cope with Stress

Abstract

Previous research has uncovered a link between stress and cannabis. The overall goal of the present study was to further elucidate the nature of this link by examining whether cannabis use motives (e.g., using cannabis to cope with negative affect) mediate the putative associations between stress (early life stress, chronic stress) and cannabis (frequency of cannabis use, problematic cannabis use). A sample of 578 cannabis-using college students completed an anonymous online survey designed to measure early life stress, chronic stress, frequency of cannabis use, and problematic cannabis use. The results indicated that early life stress was significantly associated with more frequent cannabis use and that both early life stress and chronic stress were significantly associated with more problematic cannabis use. The results of a series of parallel multiple mediation models further revealed that cannabis coping motives (i.e., using cannabis to cope with negative affect and other problems) was a significant mediator of all three of these relationships. These findings suggest that both early life stress and chronic stress may lead to the use of cannabis to cope with stress, and that the use of cannabis for this purpose may, in turn, increaseproblematic cannabis use. We propose that enhancing cannabis users’ coping skills, so that they are notreliant on cannabis for coping, may help sever the connection between stress and problematic cannabis use.