Social media ads drive cannabis use in teens

In states where cannabis is legal, exposure to marketing materials, particularly through social media, is associated with recent cannabis use in adolescents, reports a recent study.

Administering an online panel survey, researchers examined the exposure of 469 adolescents (aged 15–19 years; 70 percent female) to cannabis marketing and assessed its cross-sectional relationship with past-year cannabis use. Participants were enrolled from the states of California, Colorado, Nevada and Washington, where cannabis is legal. Marketing through both traditional and social media channels was considered.

Almost all the participants (93.6 percent) reported having at least some degree of exposure to cannabis marketing. These exposures were more prevalent online. More than a quarter (78.5 percent) reported seeing advertising on social media sites, while 72.9 percent saw them on billboards; only 43.1 percent were exposed to marketing materials through newspapers and magazines.

Instagram, in particular, was the most popular social media platform for advertising with 63.5 percent of all respondents reporting marketing exposure on the app. This was followed by Facebook (58.2 percent) and Twitter (40.5 percent).

There was a positive and significant correlation between cannabis use within the past year and perceived exposure to cannabis-related marketing materials. This relationship was evident for advertising delivered through Instagram (odds ratio [OR], 2.29, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.32–3.97), Facebook (OR, 1.96, 95 percent CI, 1.15–3.34) and Twitter (OR, 1.88, 95 percent CI, 1.11–3.19).

Notably, no such effect was reported for outdoor marketing like billboards, nor for newspapers and magazines.