Examining Same-Day Associations Between Cannabis Use Motives and Condom Use in Urban Emerging Adults: A Brief Report

Cannabis use is broadly associated with risky sexual behaviors, but evidence regarding how cannabis is related to condomless sex at the individual level is mixed. A better understanding of the context in which cannabis use is occurring, that is, why individuals are using cannabis on a particular day, could help clarify these relationships. Accordingly, we examined whether same-day cannabis use motives were associated with condomless sex on cannabis use days in a sample of unmarried, urban emerging adults from a resource-poor community.

Participants (N = 86; mean age = 22.0 years; 52.4% female) were recruited from an emergency department. They provided data over 28 days on cannabis use, cannabis use motives, and sexual behaviors via text message surveys. Multilevel, multinomial regression was then used to examine the associations between cannabis use motives and condomless sex at both the within-day and between-person levels.

Results suggested that individuals who more frequently endorse conformity motives for cannabis use are more likely to engage in condomless sex, whereas individuals who more frequently endorse social cannabis use motives are less likely to engage in condomless sex.

These findings help illuminate some of the factors related to the co-occurrence of cannabis use and condomless sex, which is important for informing interventions to prevent sexually transmitted infections for cannabis-using individuals. The results here specifically indicate that interventions targeting co-occurring cannabis and risky sex behaviors might benefit by incorporating cannabis use motives as markers of vulnerability.