Cannabis Use Patterns and the Strength of Belief: Challenging the Religious-Atheist Division

Decades of research have pointed to a negative association between religiosity and cannabis use. However, the complexity of the dimensions involved in cannabis consumption highlights the need to assess whether religious variables would still be considered protective factors if studies included the level of risk associated with cannabis use. This study examined the association between the strength of religious and atheist beliefs and cannabis use (vs nonuse), as well as the level of risk (low-risk use vs moderate/high-risk use) among participants who use cannabis.

Data were collected from 5007 adults using an online questionnaire, of whom 1803 reported cannabis use. Cannabis use and its risk level were measured using the Alcohol, Smoking, and Substance Involvement Screening Test. Strength of religious and atheist belief was measured using the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS-10BR), and the Dimensions of Secularity Scale.

Logistic regression analyses showed that having medium religiosity (aOR = 1.79; 95% CI = 1.43-2.25), low religiosity (aOR = 1.54; 95% CI = 1.04-2.28), medium/high atheism (aOR = 1.68; 95% CI = 1.27-2.23), or low atheism (aOR = 1.69; 95% CI = 1.18-2.44) was positively associated with cannabis use compared with having high religiosity. However, for moderate/high-risk cannabis use compared with low-risk use, the belief strength analyses were not significant. Regarding intrapersonal religious pluralism, there was no significant difference between non-plural and compatible plural, but being incompatible plural was positively associated with moderate/high-risk cannabis use (aOR = 1.71; 95% CI = 1.23-2.38).

Cannabis use is negatively associated with high religiosity, while moderate/high-risk cannabis use was not associated with the strength of religious or atheist beliefs. The factors associated with cannabis use differed from those associated with moderate/high-risk cannabis use.