Mixing Tobacco with Cannabis Increases Risk of Dependence

A new study, published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, indicates that individuals who combine cannabis and tobacco are less likely to quit than those who smoke only cannabis. Researchers from the Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit of University College London, United Kingdom assessed the risk factor of adding tobacco to cannabis mixtures.

Users were asked if they combined tobacco with cannabis for their preferred method of administration and if they had a desire to quit either one. All users had used cannabis within the last 12 months.

“Cannabis dependence and tobacco dependence manifest in similar ways, so it is often difficult to separate these out in people who use both drugs,” stated study lead author Chandni Hindocha. “Cannabis is less addictive than tobacco, but we show here that mixing tobacco with cannabis lowers the motivation to quit using these drugs.”

Data was gathered from the 2014 Global Drug Survey, which surveyed 33,687 anonymous users across 18 countries. Combining cannabis and tobacco was much more popular in Europe, with 77.2 to 90.9 percent of European cannabis users stating that they combined cannabis with tobacco in blunts or joints.

In North America, combining the two was much less popular. In Canada, it was 16 percent; Mexico, 6.9 percent; Brazil, 7.4 percent; and The United States with only 4.4 percent. Reported vaporizer use was popular only in North America.

Individuals who smoked cannabis separately were 61.5 percent more likely to seek help quitting cannabis. Individuals who smoked cannabis separately were 80.6 percent more likely to seek help in quitting tobacco. Tobacco use eventually kills up to half of all of its users, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Although tobacco is nearly ten times more popular than cannabis worldwide, tobacco is much more carcinogenic.

Researchers seemed more concerned about the introduction of tobacco than anything else. “Given a changing legislative environment surrounding access to cannabis in many jurisdictions, increased research focus should be given to reducing the use of routes of administration that involve the co-administration of tobacco,” said co-author Dr. Michael T. Lynskey. The findings indicate that tobacco use increases the overall dependence on cannabis.