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Effects of parent personality, upbringing, and marijuana use on the parent-child attachment relationship.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the predictors of the quality of the parent-child attachment relationship among a sample of 248 young adults with children. METHOD: In this longitudinal study, data were collected during early adulthood in 1992 and in 1996/1997 via a structured questionnaire. Using logistic regression and multiple regression analyses, the authors assessed the extent to which participants' personality attributes, substance use, and relationships with their mothers predicted the quality of the parent-child bond. RESULTS: Logistic regression models showed that participants with certain personality attributes (e.g., high sensitivity), less frequent marijuana use, or a close relationship with their mothers had a greater likelihood of having a close parent-child attachment relationship with their own children at a later time. Regression analysis also showed that the risk of earlier substance use on the parent-child relationship was offset by protective factors in the parents' personality domain. In addition, protective factors in the various parental domains synergistically interacted with a low frequency of marijuana use, relating to a closer parent-child attachment relationship. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that certain parenting styles are transmitted across generations and interventions in the personality and drug use domains can help increase the likelihood that parents will form close attachment relationships with their own children.

Adolescent↗

Lesbian alcohol and marijuana use: correlates of HIV risk behaviors and abusive relationships.

One hundred fifty-two self-identified lesbian and bisexual women participated in an exploratory study of lesbian health and high-risk sexual behaviors. These women were primarily White, middle class, and college educated. The relationship of alcohol and marijuana use to high-risk sexual behaviors and involvement in past or current abusive experiences was investigated. Having been involved in coercive sexual activities was related to some high-risk sexual activities and alcohol and marijuana use. The women in this sample were engaging in high-risk sexual activities, perhaps because of a lack of HIV-risk perception among lesbians in general, and in this sample in particular. These results demonstrate the need for HIV and safer-sex education even among highly educated women and awareness of the interrelationship between drug use and unsafe sexual activities.

Adolescent↗

Marijuana use does not spuriously elevate serum human chorionic gonadotropin levels.

Marijuana use has been reported to spuriously elevate immunoreactive human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) in the serum of patients with testicular germ cell tumors. To reinvestigate this finding, we measured serum HCG and delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (delta 9-THC) levels in 16 men known or suspected to be marijuana users. Eight of the serum samples had measurable levels of delta 9-THC, while eight did not. None contained immunoreactive HCG. The addition of delta 9-THC directly to pooled male serum had no effect on the HCG radioimmunoassay. These results indicate that marijuana does not artificially elevate serum HCG concentrations.

Cannabis↗

Tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use among black adolescents: a comparison across gender, grade, and school environment.

Self-report measures of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use were administered to 2,748 black adolescents, grades 7 through 12. The proportion of students who had tried any of the substances increased by grade. Males and females were not significantly different in their use of cigarettes and alcohol. Males were more likely to have tried smokeless tobacco, smoked marijuana, and used combinations of substances. Females who reported using more than one substance preferred the combination of cigarettes and alcohol. Significant effects of school environment were noted. Increasing age-related experimentation is exacerbated by school setting (junior high versus senior high). Given that blacks have disproportionately high cancer prevalence and mortality rates, intervention programs may also need to consider school environment, substance specific initiation points, and combined use preferences in order to maximize the desired effect within this population.

Adolescent↗

The effects of price and policy on marijuana use: what can be learned from the Australian experience?

This research examines the responsiveness of the demand for marijuana to changes in its money price and criminal status using data on individuals from the Australian National Drug Strategy's Household Surveys (NDSHS). The results suggest that both the prevalence of marijuana use and the conditional demand for marijuana in the general population are responsive to changes in its money price. Significant differences are found in the effect of price on participation in marijuana use across age-groups, with participation by youth more price sensitive than participation by older age-groups. Similarly, the effect of the legal status of marijuana use on the participation decision is found to differ across age-groups and gender. Specifically, decriminalisation is associated with an increases in the prevalence of use by males over the age of 25. There is no evidence that decriminalisation significantly increases participation in marijuana use by either young males or females, or that decriminalisation increases the frequency of use among marijuana users.

Adolescent↗

Risk of functional ovarian cyst: effects of smoking and marijuana use according to body mass index.

Smoking is one of the few risk factors that have been identified for functional ovarian cysts, and results of one epidemiologic study suggest that body mass index (BMI; weight (kg)/height (m)(2)) may modify the effect of this exposure. The current study assessed the association of cigarette smoking and marijuana use with functional ovarian cyst risk by using data from a population-based 1990-1995 case-control study of 586 incident functional ovarian cyst cases and 757 age-matched controls in a large health maintenance organization in Washington State. In multivariate analyses controlling for age, education, and reference year, the authors found an increase in risk associated with current cigarette smoking among women whose BMI was <20 (odds ratio (OR) = 2.48, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.32, 4.64) or 20-25 (OR = 1.60, 95% CI: 1.04, 2.46) but not >25 (OR = 0.85, 95% CI: 0.53, 1.37). Corresponding risks associated with current marijuana use were BMI <20, OR = 2.05 (95% CI: 0.89, 4.75); BMI 20-25, OR = 1.78 (95% CI: 1.00, 3.17); and BMI >25, OR = 0.72 (95% CI: 0.36, 1.42). Study results indicate that increased BMI may attenuate the adverse effect of smoking on the risk of functional ovarian cyst.

Adult↗

Possible age-associated bias in reporting of clinical features of drug dependence: epidemiological evidence on adolescent-onset marijuana use.

AIMS: To probe recent evidence on apparent excess occurrence of marijuana dependence when marijuana smoking starts in adolescence. DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS: A national sample of recent-onset marijuana users was identified within public data files of the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA), 1995-98 (1,866 adolescents and 762 adults). MEASUREMENTS: Marijuana dependence was assessed via seven standardized questions about its clinical features, such as being unable to cut down. Multivariate response models (GLM/GEE and MIMIC) were used to evaluate adolescent excess risk and possible item biases. FINDINGS: Among people who had just started to use marijuana, clinical features of marijuana dependence occurred twice as often among adolescents compared to adults, even with statistical adjustment for other covariates (P < 0.01 from GLM/GEE). MIMIC analyses suggest that adolescent-onset users have somewhat higher levels of marijuana dependence, and they also provide evidence of age-associated response bias for some but not all clinical features of marijuana dependence. That is, even with level of marijuana dependence held constant, adolescent recent-onset users were more likely than adults to report being unable to cut down (P = 0.01) and tolerance (P = 0.029). CONCLUSION: Nosologic, methodological and substantive reasons for observed age-related excess in occurrence of marijuana dependence problems among early onset users deserve more attention in future research.

Adolescent↗

The effects of prenatal tobacco and marijuana use on offspring growth from birth through 3 years of age.

This is a prospective study of prenatal substance use. Women were interviewed during their fourth and seventh months of pregnancy, at delivery, and at 8, 18, and 36 months postpartum. At birth, there were 763 liveborn, singleton offspring in the sample. At each phase, the offspring were examined and measured for growth. Data are presented on the relationship between tobacco and marijuana use and the size of the offspring at birth, 8, 18, and 36 months of age. At birth, there was a significant inverse relationship between tobacco use and weight, length, and head circumference. At 8 months of age, only length continued to be associated with prenatal tobacco exposure. By 18 months of age, there was no relationship between prenatal tobacco exposure and size of the offspring. Prenatal marijuana exposure was only associated with decreased length at birth. Neither tobacco nor marijuana use predicted gestational age or morphological abnormalities.

Child, Preschool↗

Sex differences in shared genetic and environmental influences between conduct disorder symptoms and marijuana use in adolescents.

The association between conduct disorder (CD) symptoms and marijuana use (MU) was assessed in 1,480 adolescent twins participating in the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health. A strong association was found between CD and MU for both males (r=.38, P<.01) and females (r=.31, P<.01). Structural equation modeling on age-corrected rank normalized scores using the program Mx indicated significant gender differences in the genetic and environmental contributions to MU. Additive genetic influences were comparable in size for males (29%) and females (24%). However, for females the influence of common environmental influences was greater (58%) than for males (36%). There was also evidence of greater common environmental influences for females, as well as greater genetic influences for males for CD, but these differences did not reach significance. In addition, for CD common environmental influences did not differ significantly from zero. Additive genetic influences accounted for 61% of the variance in CD, with the remainder being of unique environmental origin. Bivariate genetic analyses suggested a moderate genetic correlation between CD and MU (r(g)=.28) and a low unique environmental correlation (r(e)=.14). These results suggest that CD and MU share genetic influences, while environmental influences tend to be more specific to each behavior. These findings may have implications for the prevention and treatment of CD and substance use among adolescents.

Adolescent↗

Reinforcing properties of oral delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol, smoked marijuana, and nabilone: influence of previous marijuana use.

The reinforcing properties of delta 9THC (17.5 mg), a 1 g marijuana cigarette containing 1.83% delta 9-THC, a synthetic cannabis compound (Nabilone 2 mg orally), and their respective placebos were assessed with self-report and operant work-contingent choice procedures. Three groups of eight subjects were selected on the basis of a history of regular, intermittent, or occasional marijuana-smoking behavior. All subjects served as their own controls for each drug condition and studies were carried out under double-blind and "double-dummy" conditions in a controlled, residential research ward. Placebo responding did not vary as a function of history of marijuana use, but the past history of drug use had a significant influence on the reinforcing properties of cannabis compounds as well as the behavioral and physiological effects of these drugs. Regular marijuana users reported a significant increase in elation following marijuana smoking, but this was not associated with a significant increment in pulse rate. Intermittent and occasional marijuana smokers had significant increases in pulse rate, but no significant marijuana-induced elation. Nabilone and delta 9-THC produced a significant increase in pulse rate for all subject groups, but there was no significant increase in elation following ingestion of these compounds. Given a choice between the three drugs and three placebos, 18 of 23 subjects worked to obtain a marijuana cigarette in an operant work choice paradigm. These data indicate that smoked marijuana was significantly more reinforcing than all other cannabis compounds studied, regardless of past drug-use history.

Adult↗

Adolescent alcohol and marijuana use: a longitudinal assessment of a social learning perspective.

A social learning model which incorporates measures from both the sociological perspective of differential association and the psychological perspective of behavior reinforcement is analyzed as an explanation of continued alcohol and marijuana use among youths. Data were gathered at two points in time from a sample of adolescents from New Jersey. The measurement and structural relationships among peer associations, attitudes, reinforcing and punishing consequences, and patterns of use were examined. It was found that, overall, the model fit the data for use of both substances, proving to be invariant across age and gender groups. The most pronounced difference between the alcohol and marijuana models was that differential associations exhibited the strongest relationship to maintenance of alcohol use while reinforcers were most salient to continued marijuana use.

Adolescent↗

Undergraduate marijuana use and anger.

The Anger Expression Scale and a questionnaire regarding marijuana usage were administered to 497 undergraduate college students enrolled at a rural university in the midwestern United States. Four levels of marijuana use were defined by the questionnaire: nonuser, occasional user, frequent user, and daily user. No significant main effect was found on the Anger-In or Total Anger Expression scales, but differences among the four levels of use were noted on the Anger-Out scale. The trend analysis showed a significant linear trend for the Anger-Out and Total Anger Expression scales. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Adult↗

Prolonged depersonalization after marijuana use.

The author describes four cases of prolonged depersonalization that occurred months after marijuana use. Each occurred in the setting of a stressful life event. Depersonalization is a common experience during acute intoxication with marijuana, and these cases suggest that after the patients had experienced depersonalization, external stressors and intrapsychic factors may have contributed to its continued use as a defense mechanism.

Adolescent↗

Marijuana use is associated with a reorganized visual-attention network and cerebellar hypoactivation.

Attention and memory deficits have been reported in heavy marijuana users, but these effects may be reversible after prolonged abstinence. It remains unclear whether the reversibility of these cognitive deficits indicates that chronic marijuana use does not alter cortical networks, or that such changes occur but the brain adapts to the drug-induced changes. Blood oxygenation-level dependent (BOLD) functional MRI (fMRI) was performed in 24 chronic marijuana users (12 abstinent and 12 active) and 19 age-, sex- and education-matched control subjects during a set of visual-attention tasks with graded levels of difficulty. Neuropsychological tests were also administered on each subject. The two marijuana user groups showed no significant difference in usage pattern (frequency or duration of use, age of first use, cumulative joints used, averaged >2000 joints) or estimated cumulative lifetime exposure of Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) (mean 168 +/- 45 versus 244 +/- 135 g). Despite similar task and cognitive test performance compared with control subjects, active and abstinent marijuana users showed decreased activation in the right prefrontal, medial and dorsal parietal, and medial cerebellar regions, but greater activation in various frontal, parietal and occipital brain regions during the visual-attention tasks (all with P < or = 0.001, corrected, cluster level). However, the BOLD signals in the right frontal and medial cerebellar regions normalized with duration of abstinence in the abstinent users. Active marijuana users, with positive urine tests for THC, showed greater activation in the frontal and medial cerebellar regions than abstinent marijuana users and greater usage of the reserve network (regions with load effect), suggesting a neuroadaptive state. Both earlier age of first use and greater estimated cumulative dose of THC exposure were related to lower BOLD signals in the right prefrontal region and medial cerebellum. The altered BOLD activation pattern in the attention network and hypoactivation of the cerebellum suggest neuroadaptive processes or alteration of brain development in chronic marijuana users. These changes also may be related to marijuana-induced alteration in resting cerebral blood volume/flow or downregulation of cannabinoid (CB1) receptors. The greater activation in the active compared with abstinent marijuana users demonstrates a neuroadaptive state in the setting of active marijuana use, while the long-term chronic effect of marijuana on the altered brain network may be reversible with prolonged abstinence.

Adolescent↗

Personality factors associated with frequency of marijuana use.

A number of personality and style-of-life variables were found to be significantly related to frequency of marijuana use, in a study of 1215 students on the University of California, Los Angeles, campus. Compared with the non-user, in composite the typical marijuana-user is somewhat depressed, more inclined to doubt his emotional adjustment. He likes to take risks and seeks stimulation; he has strong political opinions; he believes in punishment for law-breakers, but he is more likely to question it. He is not religious; he is less well identified with parents, and he has a lower opinion of their marital adjustment. He is not decisive about career goals; he is a fine arts or liberal arts major. He uses alcohol, sometimes in combination with marijuana; he first tried marijuana after entering college and is not increasing his use. The typical marijuana-user in the sample uses it infrequently, twice a month or less often, and is not likely to be using other drugs. The frequent user probably uses other drugs.

Adult↗

Relationship between physical activity level and cigarette, smokeless tobacco, and marijuana use among public high school adolescents.

This study analyzed the association between physical activity level and cigarette, smokeless tobacco, and marijuana use among a selected group of public high school students from South Carolina (N = 4,800). The 1993 CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey was used to collect self-report information on physical activity, substance use, and other risk-taking behaviors. Multiple logistic regression analysis for weighted data (SUDAAN) was used for data analysis. Adjusted analysis showed significant associations (p < .05) among White males for use of cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, and marijuana, where higher levels of physical activity were inversely associated to use of these substances. Results from the study substantiate the importance of physical activity for adolescents, and demonstrate the need for future research to clarify the causal relationship between physical activity and substance use behaviors.

Adolescent↗

Seventh-grade cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana use: distribution in a north central U.S. metropolitan population.

Tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use were examined in a seventh-grade population from a north central U.S. metropolitan community. Participation exceeded 94% and biological testing was used to increase the disclosure of drug use during the survey. Drug use was related to age, gender, race, family structure, and parental occupation in a series of logit analyses to identify high-risk groups. While univariate analyses uniformly supported earlier studies, the logit analyses revealed patterns not previously reported and at times contrary to previous reports. Significant associations were observed between drug use and each of the demographic factors; the likelihood of drug use increased by as much as 80-fold in subgroups defined by interactions among these variables. Native Americans, Hispanics, Black females, and adolescents whose mothers held white-collar jobs were substantially more likely to report drug use compared to other groups; females were generally similar to males in their level of use after adjustment for other factors. These results suggest that multivariate analyses which consider higher-order interactions may more adequately model the distribution of drug use in adolescent populations, compared to those based on univariate or first-order multivariate techniques.

Adolescent↗

Effects of frequent marijuana use on memory-related regional cerebral blood flow.

It is uncertain whether frequent marijuana use adversely affects human brain function. Using positron emission tomography (PET), memory-related regional cerebral blood flow was compared in frequent marijuana users and nonusing control subjects after 26+ h of monitored abstention. Memory-related blood flow in marijuana users, relative to control subjects, showed decreases in prefrontal cortex, increases in memory-relevant regions of cerebellum, and altered lateralization in hippocampus. Marijuana users differed most in brain activity related to episodic memory encoding. In learning a word list to criterion over multiple trials, marijuana users, relative to control subjects, required means of 2.7 more presentations during initial learning and 3.1 more presentations during subsequent relearning. In single-trial recall, marijuana users appeared to rely more on short-term memory, recalling 23% more than control subjects from the end of a list, but 19% less from the middle. These findings indicate altered memory-related brain function in marijuana users.

Analysis of Variance↗