Despite laws against advertising cannabis to teens, young people reported in surveys that they still see a lot of positive cannabis messages through social media posts.
Washington State University researchers found these messages were also connected to the teens’ intentions to use cannabis, and for college students, with their actual use. Anti-cannabis messages also had an effect in lessening use-intentions, but young people saw less of those types of messages.
“Youth, in particular, have really grown up bombarded with cannabis information compared to previous generations,” said Jessica Willoughby, first author on the study published in the journal Health Communication and an associate professor in WSU’s Murrow College of Communication. “We found that they were seeing more positive messages about using cannabis and a lot less about the risks.”
For this study, the researchers surveyed 350 teens and 966 college students from…