Correlates of self-reported medicinal cannabis use for physical health, mental health, and sleep-related conditions in a population-based survey of Canadian youth

Objective: Medicinal cannabis use (MCU) among youth is correlated with frequent cannabis use and several substance use and health-related indicators. This study examined whether correlates of self-reported MCU among youth varied as a function of the primary health condition for which cannabis is used. Method: Data came from the 2017 Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol, and Drugs Survey. Youth (ages 15-24) who reported past year cannabis use were included in analyses. Regression analyses (controlling for age and sex) compared youth reporting only non-medicinal cannabis use (NMCU-only, n=2082) to youth reporting MCU primarily for physical health conditions (n=227), mental health conditions (n=271), or insomnia (n=98). Results: Relative to youth reporting NMCU-only, youth reporting MCU for physical or mental health conditions had greater odds of reporting daily cannabis use, cannabis problems, vaporization and oral ingestion of cannabis, and tobacco use. Youth reporting MCU for physical health reasons also had greater odds of both illicit drug use and prescription pain medication use, whereas youth reporting MCU for mental health reasons had greater odds of prescription sedative use. Youth reporting MCU for insomnia only had greater odds of cannabis problems relative to youth in the NMCU-only group. Youth in both the physical health and mental health MCU groups reported poorer health and mental health compared with the NMCU-only group. Some, but not all, differences were accounted for by greater frequency of cannabis use among youth reporting MCU. Conclusions: Findings provide new insight into the correlates of MCU among youth in the general population, suggesting that these correlates vary as a function of the primary reason for MCU.