Quick Clips with Dr. Kilmer: 05. Is Everybody High? Cannabis Use Statistics in College

In this series we talk with Dr. Jason Kilmer, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He specializes in the development, implementation, and evaluation of substance use prevention and intervention efforts on college campuses and among 18–25 year olds.   

While Dr. Kilmer focuses on college campuses, his insights are universal and particularly helpful for parents with teenagers of any age. Share these recordings with your parenting peers as you all navigate this exciting time in human development (ages 14–25) and work to help your kids navigate away from alcohol and other drugs.

This podcast is brought to you by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The views expressed here are not necessarily those of SAMHSA or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. For questions or comments about this podcast, please contact WhatParentsAreSaying@gmail.com. 

Transcript

Quick Clips with Dr. Kilmer: 05. Is Everybody High? Cannabis Use Statistics in College

[00:00:00] Debbie: Welcome to Quick Clips with Dr. Kilmer. Today we're talking about marijuana use statistics among college students. Dr. Kilmer, can you talk with us about this and how parents should perceive marijuana use in this age group? 

[00:00:19] Dr. Kilmer: We know that most students do not use cannabis, and what's interesting is that when we look at.

[00:00:25] Research that's been around for decades, the most pronounced misperceptions of cannabis or marijuana use come from those that use most frequently. So if someone uses on a daily basis, they're convinced that most people in fact use all the time, which is completely not true. The most recent monitoring the Future study showed that 39.5% of college students use cannabis at least once in the past year.

[00:00:48] So what do most students do? Abstain over 60% don't use. When we look at past month use. 26.1% say they used at least once in the past month. And there are a handful of students that use daily or almost daily that certainly are facing, in all likelihood, more unwanted outcomes associated with that. That's a little over 6% that used 20 or more days in the past month.

[00:01:11] So, you know, I'm in a state that's had legal cannabis coming up on. On almost 12 years now, our rates are a little bit higher in the state of Washington for young adults, but it's still the case that most people don't use. Our rates are like upper forties, much like the weather right now. But it's not the case that, in quotes, everyone uses, and it's important for people to know about that.

[00:01:32] Debbie: Feels like the near daily use of of marijuana. That's the story you always hear as well, or see it portrayed. 

[00:01:39] Dr. Kilmer: Mm-hmm. Well, so much of that. None of this is unique to college students and none of this is unique to substance use. I have a colleague, Dr. Jeff lba, who I always credit with being the first person I heard to give this analogy.

[00:01:52] If we're driving on the freeway for 30 minutes and traffic's moving, there's no construction, there's no backup. You know, in 30 minutes on the freeway, who are the cars that really, really stand out to us? Who are the ones that we notice? People tend to say the ones weaving in and out of traffic, the ones blowing by us.

[00:02:07] How many of those do we see in 30 minutes? Five, six? Yeah. Let's be, let's be bold and say 10. What's the first thing we say when we get outta the car? Everyone drives crazy around here. No one knows how to drive what's wrong with people. For whatever reason, we don't notice the hundreds doing exactly what we're doing.

[00:02:24] Minus the occasional really slow person that's, you know, slowing traffic down. Yeah. We don't know if someone's going slower than us 'cause they're all behind us. The same thing happens with substance use. So if a hundred typical students are at a party based on past 30 day rates, 

[00:02:39] Debbie: yeah. 

[00:02:39] Dr. Kilmer: From monitoring the future, 45 of 'em aren't drinking at all.

[00:02:43] You know, I'm making these numbers up, but it's like 20 that are having one drink all night. It's 15 having two drinks all night. It's probably only five people drinking the 6, 7, 8, 9 or more. But who does everyone see? Who does everyone talk about? You don't hear people say, I went to a party this weekend and there was one person drinking a beer, and it's like, whoa, slow down, buddy.

[00:03:00] You hear about the extreme and if that paints the picture that that's what everyone does, that's problematic. With cannabis, the misperceptions can be affected by things even like smell. Someone walks into a residence hall, they smell weed. It's like, well, everyone smokes weed at the school. They really don't.

[00:03:15] It's no different than the driver that blows by us where we say, no one knows how to drive around here. It's a generalization made. From a very small group of cues that can lead to painting the picture. That's, it's more prevalent than it really is. 

[00:03:32] Debbie: Again, really encouraging as a parent just a, a good perspective check.

[00:03:38] It's not that nothing's happening, but keep it in perspective and help your kids see the perspective. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. 

[00:03:48] Dr. Kilmer: Thank you.