Marijuana practices and patterns of use among young adult medical marijuana patients and non-patient marijuana users

Background: Little is known about young adult medical marijuana patients (MMP) and their marijuana using patterns and practices, which includes frequency of use, sourcing of marijuana products, forms/modes of administration, and patterns of illicit/prescription drug misuse, compared to non-patient marijuana users (NPU). Methods: Young adults (N = 366) aged 18-26 years old were sampled in Los Angeles in 2014-15 and segmented into NPU (n = 156), marijuana users who never had a medical marijuana (MM) recommendation, and MMP (n = 210), marijuana users with a current, verified MM recommendation. Differences regarding self-reported marijuana and other drug use during the past 90 days are expressed as unadjusted risk ratios or differences in means. Results: MMP reported significantly greater mean days of use (76.4 vs. 59.2, p < 0.001) and mean dollars spent on marijuana products (564.5 vs. 266.9, p < 0.001) than NPU. Approximately one-quarter (22.6%) of both MMP and NPU report selling marijuana obtained from a dispensary to someone else in the past 90 days. MMP were more likely to report vaporization modalities for concentrates (URR = 1.5, 95% C.I. = 1.2, 2.0) and for marijuana (URR= 1.5,95% C.I. = 1.1, 2.1) than NPU. Though not significant, trends toward lower misuse of prescription drugs in the past 90 days were observed among MMP compared to NPU. Conclusion: MMP reported greater access to marijuana via dispensaries, more frequent and intensive use of marijuana, and greater use of non-combustible forms of marijuana compared to NPU. MMP reported less recent misuse of prescription drugs compared to NPU. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.