Why parents worry: initiation into cannabis use by youth and their educational attainment

In this paper we use individual level data from the Australian National Drug Strategy Household Survey to study the relationship between initiation into cannabis use and educational attainment. Using bivariate duration analysis we find that those initiating into cannabis use are much more likely to dropout of school, and that the reduction in years of education depends on the age at which initiation into cannabis occurs. We also find that the impact of cannabis uptake is larger for females than males.