For Young Adults Who Use Both Alcohol and Cannabis, Alcohol Use May Trigger Cannabis Cravings Among Men but Not Women
Research Society on AlcoholismAmong young adults who frequently use cannabis, drinking alcohol is linked to intensified cannabis cravings in men and reduced cannabis cravings in women, a novel study suggests. The findings potentially illuminate mechanisms driving the combined use of the two substances and could inform sex-specific approaches to preventing or addressing the resulting harms. Young adults commonly use alcohol and cannabis together (i.e., co-use), and people who use both substances experience more negative consequences—including worse outcomes for alcohol use disorder treatment—than those who use one or the other. Co-use may be partially driven “cross-substance-induced” craving, in which the repeated co-use of two substances prompts one to become a trigger for the other. Research on this effect involving alcohol and cannabis—previously limited to laboratory testing and remote monitoring—has hinted at sex differences in these effects. For the study in Alcohol: Clinical Experimental Research, investigato