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. 2018 Jul;48(3):421-434.
doi: 10.1177/0022042618770393. Epub 2018 Apr 21.

Religious Involvement and Marijuana Use for Medical and Recreational Purposes

Amy M Burdette  1 , Noah S Webb  1 , Terrence D Hill  2 , Stacy Hoskins Haynes  3 , Jason A Ford  4
Affiliations

Religious Involvement and Marijuana Use for Medical and Recreational Purposes

Amy M Burdette et al. J Drug Issues. 2018 Jul.

Abstract

In this article, we use data from the 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) to examine the association between religious involvement and marijuana use for medical and recreational purposes in U.S. adults (N = 41,517). We also consider whether the association between religious involvement and marijuana use varies according to personal health status. Our results show that adults who attend religious services more frequently and hold more salient religious beliefs tend to exhibit lower rates of medical and recreational marijuana use. We also find that these "protective effects" are less pronounced for adults in poor health. Although our findings confirm previous studies of recreational marijuana use, we are the first to examine the association between religious involvement and medical marijuana use. Our moderation analyses suggest that the morality and social control functions of religious involvement may be offset under the conditions of poor health.

Keywords: United States; medical marijuana; poor health; religion; religious service attendance; substance use.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Adjusted probabilities of marijuana use by self-rated health and religious attendance.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Adjusted probabilities of marijuana use by self-rated health and religious salience.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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