Young Adults Who Smoked Both Cigarettes and Marijuana Had Linked Use Patterns but Different Quit Motivations

Young adults aged 18-25 who had smoked at least one cigarette in the past 30 days completed an anonymous online survey. Of 1,987 respondents, 972 reported both past-month cigarette and marijuana use. Measures included frequency and severity of use, temptations, dependence, decisional balance, stage of change, quit attempts, and abstinence expectations for each substance.

The high rate of co-use among young adults means treatment programs need to consider both substances. The finding that motivation differs across substances suggests intervention approaches may need to be tailored: young adults may be more receptive to tobacco cessation messaging while viewing marijuana use as less problematic.

As marijuana legalization expands, co-use of tobacco and cannabis is likely to remain common. Understanding how young adults think about each substance differently, despite using them in correlated patterns, is essential for designing effective dual-use interventions.

This was a cross-sectional online survey, subject to self-selection bias. The sample skewed male and Caucasian. Self-reported substance use may be inaccurate. The survey recruited cigarette smokers, so it cannot generalize to all young adult marijuana users. Causal relationships between cigarette and marijuana use patterns cannot be determined.