How Demographic Factors Impact Attitudes Toward the Recreational Use of Cannabis

While cannabis legalization in the United States has become more commonplace, differences in attitudes toward its use persist. Negative attitudes toward cannabis create barriers to care for those seeking its use for therapeutic purposes. Existing research regarding the attitudes surrounding cannabis is specific to medical cannabis (MC) use or cannabis use in general. To address this gap, the present research sought to explore the demographic factors that influence attitudes toward recreational cannabis, including gender, age, ethnicity, race, level of education, marital status, number of children, the legal status of cannabis in the state of residency, employment status, political party affiliation, political view, and religion. The Recreational Cannabis Attitudes Scale (RCAS) was used to measure participants’ attitudes toward recreational cannabis. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) or one-way Welch ANOVA was used to determine variations in RCAS scores between different demographic groups. Data from 645 participants indicated that gender (P = 0.039), employment status (P = 0.016), political party affiliation (P = 0.002), political view (P = 0.0005), the legal status of the state of residence (P = 0.003), religion (P = 0.0005), and experience with cannabis (P = 0.0005) had significant variations between groups regarding attitudes toward recreational cannabis. Understanding the factors that inform attitudes is critical to efforts to destigmatize cannabis use. Education about cannabis is an effective measure in reducing stigma, and paired with demographic information, advocacy efforts can be more accurately targeted.