Peer Effects in Adolescent Cannabis Use: It’s the Friends, Stupid
Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series Working Paper No. 27/12
John Moriarty, Duncan McVicar and Kathryn Higgins
Early adolescent cannabis use has been linked to a variety of negative consequences for the user including poorer educational outcomes (e.g. van Ours and Williams, 2009), while persistent use in adolescence has been shown to increase the probability of adult onset psychological ill-health including psychotic symptoms (e.g. Patton et al., 2002; Kupper et al., 2011). Parents and policy makers may therefore want to discourage adolescents from using cannabis. Evidence on the factors that influence adolescent cannabis use can help in this regard, and although some factors are unlikely to be manipulable (e.g. gender, household structure), others may be more open to intervention from policy makers or parents (e.g. price, choice of school or friends).
