Alcohol intoxication among cannabis users in a school-based adolescent sample

AbstractThe aim of this study was to investigate whether alcohol intoxication is associated with cannabis use among Norwegian adolescents. The current study was based on a sub-set of data from the Norwegian Ungdata survey. A total of 28,953 adolescents from 33 municipalities responded to an illicit drug use module (response rate 77%). Results showed that a high frequency of alcohol intoxication in the past year was associated with use of cannabis as the sole illicit drug in the past year. The findings further reflected that a high frequency of alcohol intoxication in the past year was strongly associated with the frequency of cannabis use in the same period. Those who solely had used cannabis shared more characteristics with users of additional illicit drugs than with non-illicit drug users. Frequent alcohol intoxication seems to be associated with increased risk of frequent cannabis use. Early interventions could benefit from focussing on these drugs in tandem.