Variability in subjective responses to marijuana: initial experiences of college students

A short self-report questionnaire that probed initial and most recent experiences with marijuana was administered to 197 undergraduate psychology students. Measures of Global Positive and Global Negative responses to marijuana use were obtained. There was substantial variability in the response to marijuana on both of these scales, which were moderately correlated with each other. The self-reported Global Positive score for initial use of marijuana was correlated with latency to next use of marijuana and with lifetime use of the drug, suggesting that abuse potential of the drug is related to magnitude of initial positive effect. Self-reported Global Negative scores for initial use did not correlate with either of these outcome measures. These data are compared and contrasted to those from a study that examined these responses to cocaine. The findings suggest that the abuse potential for both of these drugs is related to the magnitude of the positive response to first use.