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. 2016 Jun;55(6):487-494.e6.
doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2016.04.002. Epub 2016 Apr 7.

Declining Prevalence of Marijuana Use Disorders Among Adolescents in the United States, 2002 to 2013

Richard A Grucza  1 , Arpana Agrawal  2 , Melissa J Krauss  2 , Jahnavi Bongu  2 , Andrew D Plunk  3 , Patricia A Cavazos-Rehg  2 , Laura J Bierut  2
Affiliations

Declining Prevalence of Marijuana Use Disorders Among Adolescents in the United States, 2002 to 2013

Richard A Grucza et al. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2016 Jun.

Abstract

Objective: Little is known about recent trends in marijuana use disorders among adolescents in the United States. We analyzed trends in the past-year prevalence of DSM-IV marijuana use disorders among adolescents, both overall and conditioned on past-year marijuana use. Potential explanatory factors for trends in prevalence were explored.

Method: We assembled data from the adolescent samples of the 2002 to 2013 administrations of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (N = 216,852; aged 12-17 years). The main outcome measures were odds ratios describing the average annual change in prevalence and conditional prevalence of marijuana use disorders, estimated from models of marijuana use disorder as a function of year. Post hoc analyses incorporated measures of potentially explanatory risk and protective factors into the trend analyses.

Results: A decline in the past-year prevalence of marijuana use disorders was observed (odds ratio = 0.976 per year; 95% CI = 0.968, 0.984; p < .001). This was due to both a net decline in past-year prevalence of use and a decline in the conditional prevalence of marijuana use disorders. The trend in marijuana use disorders was accounted for by a decrease in the rate of conduct problems among adolescents (e.g., fighting, stealing).

Conclusion: Past-year prevalence of marijuana use disorders among US adolescents declined by an estimated 24% over the 2002 to 2013 period. The decline may be related to trends toward lower rates of conduct problems. Identification of factors responsible for the reduction in conduct problems could inform interventions targeting both conduct problems and marijuana use disorders.

Keywords: addiction; adolescence; epidemiology; externalizing; marijuana.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Prevalence of past-year marijuana use (A), past-year marijuana use disorders (B), and past-year marijuana use disorders among past-year users (C), 2002–2013. Note: Lines represent fits to linear trend models and are not intended to model the functional form of the trend line. Error bars represent 95% CIs.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Prevalence of past-year marijuana use disorders with comorbid conduct problems (filled symbols, n=71,837) and with no comorbid conduct problems (open symbols, n=144,676). Asterisks indicate (*) that the annual estimate is lower than the 2002 estimate at p<.05. Plus symbol (+) indicates that the estimate is significantly higher than the 2002 estimate at p<.05.
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