Top 10 Reasons People Smoke Weed (According to Some New Studies)

Why do you use cannabis?

This question can be answered in a number of ways, depending on who you are asking. Someone with an illness could use cannabis to tolerate the pain of their illness. A recreational user could use it to “blow off some steam” at the end of the week (ie, stress management). Others could use it for religious or spiritual purposes.

We should all be aware of the reason we do something. If you do not understand why you are doing a certain activity or believe in a certain truth, then you are walking blindly in this ever-changing world. We all have our assumptions.

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Within the psychological community, understanding the “whys” can inform researchers about users’ motivations, which I suppose could help them in various ways. Perhaps they need this data for intervention programs or to understand the social context of cannabis. Nonetheless, this question has preoccupied researchers for some time.

Psychology Today recently published a blog devoted to exactly this topic. They took data from four different studies that tried to solve this mystery and published some of the results. In this article, we will take a closer look at the studies, as well as the researchers’ conclusions.

This will allow us to ponder the data and compare our own motivations for using cannabis. Also, if you may not agree with what is being discussed, keep in mind that these papers are usually based on desk research. In other words, they rely on surveys and data from other sources that they use to “picture” the average consumer.

Motivations for new students

Age plays an important role in motivation. College freshmen will make drastically different decisions than a 38-year-old professional because of their social environment. And this 38-year-old will draw very different conclusions than his 65-year-old boss.

The first study looked at possible motivators for “college student advocacy” and found that:

“The most common reasons given were joy / fun, conformity, experimentation, social enhancement, boredom and relaxation. Regression analyzes showed that experiments were consistently associated with less consumption and fewer problems, while enjoyment, habit, increased activity and changed perceptions or perspectives were associated with more consumption and more problems. “

RELATED: 8 Reasons College Students Use Cannabis

Of course, if we look at the paragraph above, we see that there are six main categories that cast a wide web. Many young college beginners have experimented with cannabis. These would be people who enjoy using cannabis simply to feel “high”. We could probably summarize them with the “problematic user group”.

This is because the test was developed by addiction “specialists” and elements such as socio-economic status have been associated with these groups. This creates a subtle suggestion that those who enjoy smoking weed, or who do so to “change their minds”, are typically “worse off” than those who simply experiment.

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In my experience, people tend to use cannabis more frequently during “hard times” to cope with the increasing stress. Some may argue that this creates addiction to cannabis. But when a person’s life changes, so does their behavior. A snapshot from a survey would never capture the depth and subtle nuances of life.

Social acceptance was another high profile category in this age group and makes sense. When you are finally “out of the nest”, you need a channel to get in touch with other people. When people smoke weed, you may be more inclined to give it a try to “fit in”.

Of course, this is one of the dumbest reasons to use cannabis, but I’m sure a lot of people use it to deal with social anxiety as well. After all, they are now “on their own” or at best “away from their parents” and have to make “adult decisions”. This can all be very scary, and weed can definitely be a means to process this.

Typically, after college, people decrease their heavier consumption when real life is taking place.

Adults who smoke weed for a long time

Another study looked at older populations trying to understand their motivations for using cannabis. Unsurprisingly, there is a much more nuanced list of reasons than the college-aged demographic. According to researchers:

“The main reasons for using relate to Relaxation and Improvement of leisure time Activities followed by Coping with stress and anxiety. The frequency of breathing and throat problems attributed to cannabis use underscores the perceived risk of lung damage from long-term heavy use. However, while concerns about levels of use overshadowed other indicators of addiction, including concerns about personal health, no association was found between the amount or frequency of use and the number of DSM-IV items reported by respondents. The users recognized and accepted the potential for dependency and adjusted the level of use accordingly if it was viewed as problematic. “

Here is a quick rundown of the other reasons not listed in the paragraph above;

• Relaxation (number one)
• Feel well
• Medical applications
• inspiration
• New ways of looking at things
• Coping with depression and anxiety
• Forget the worries
• Film or music enjoyment
• Better sleep
• Coping with boredom

As you can see, the list is very different, and as we noted in our introductory paragraphs, you will get different answers depending on who you ask.

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This is because cannabis is a very adaptable substance. Since it helps stimulate the endocannabinoid system – the system responsible for maintaining homeostasis in the body – it can help with virtually any of the categories listed above.

However, when you consider that the three most common of these are relaxation, activity enhancement, and stress management, we can see two things:

• Cannabis is used as a means of relaxation
• This relaxation action helps them to reduce stress

It’s pretty much the same as having a glass of wine at the end of a long day at work. There is nothing pathological about it. Even the researchers admitted that “users are largely very aware of their consumption habits and change their behavior if THEY see it as problematic”.

This is because consumption is a subjective practice. Maybe you can wake up and take a few hits of weed for inspiration while someone else has to wait until the end of the day to relax.

The bottom line is that once you know yourself you will always adapt accordingly to optimize yourself for maximum enjoyment / efficiency in life.

For researchers, the “why” is still an illusion as they view cannabis use as a pathological activity. This is why it is compared to the DSM-V all the time because they think that you are “abusing drugs” when in reality you are letting go and just getting into life. Framing matters.

This article originally appeared on Cannabis.net and was republished with permission.