Patterns of Co-occurring Modes of Marijuana Use Among Colorado High School Students

The purpose of the study was to understand how adolescents concurrently use different modes of marijuana consumption.

Using data from the 2017 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey, we examined how modes of marijuana use (smoking/ingesting/vaping/dabbing/other) co-occur. We estimated the prevalence of all combinations of these modes among adolescents who reported past 30-day marijuana use (n = 3,618). We then estimated the prevalence of any use of each mode by each mode usually used.

Forty-one percent reported only smoking, another 10% reported smoking and dabbing, and 9.8% reported smoking and ingesting. Only about 10% used a combination of modes that did not include smoking. Smoking was the most common additional mode for all other usual modes of consumption.

Smoking in combination with dabbing and/or ingesting were the most common multimode patterns of use. Nearly all adolescents who use marijuana smoke some or most of the time.