Marijuana Misconceptions in College

All social activities contain an aspect of peer pressure, whether it's "clubbing", alcohol use, drug use, etc. The concept of, "Everyone is doing it, so I should do it.", has been around for years and has recently been discovered as the leading cause for alcohol use on college campuses. Students overestimate the amount of people they believe drink, therefore feel pressured to do the same. Interestingly enough, this same pattern could also be  associated with drug use.

Marijuana is the most commonly and most widely used drug by college students. Researchers set out to determine how perceptions of peer use encourage such behavior. After randomly sending surveys to colleges in Northwestern states, a subject pool of 5,990 students was formed. 

Predominantly female, making up 63% of the pool, questions were asked about personal use, as well as how often they believe their friends and others use marijuana. Of those who used marijuana regularly, their estimates of peer use were much higher than those who did not. Roughly 77% of regular users believed the general population of students used at least once a week, which is considerably higher than actual statistical use, suggesting they may have been influenced by this misconception while using. Other discrepancies found in the study supported their original thought, marijuana use among college students is misconstrued, leading to an easy acceptance of personal use for some, and to others, a pressure to abide to social norms.

With this compiled information, non-drug users should be comforted by the results and not feel compelled to use marijuana. Hopefully this will reduce the number of students who engage in consuming marijuana and abolish the misconceptions.

Kilmer, J. R., Walker, D. D., Lee, C. M., Palmer, R. S., Mallett, K. A., Fabiano, P., & Larimer, M. E. (2006). Misperceptions of college student marijuana use: Implications for prevention. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 67(2), 277.

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