Young adults get more pleasure from smoking cigarettes while they are drinking alcohol than they do while using marijuana, according to a new UC San Francisco study.
The study is the first to document that tobacco accompanied by alcohol provides cigarette smokers with a greater perceived reward than when they smoke cigarettes while using marijuana.
The study will be published online April 18, 2017, in the journal Addiction Research & Theory.
“What we’ve learned may have important implications for understanding differences in co-use of cigarettes with alcohol versus marijuana,” said co-first author Noah R. Gubner, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar at the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF.
“Our findings show that co-use of cigarettes and alcohol could be more pleasurable than co-use of cigarettes and marijuana,” said Gubner.
Smoking Common Among Heavy Drinkers
Research has shown that among young adults, cigarette smoking is strongly associated with alcohol and marijuana use – and smoking is particularly common among heavy drinkers or binge drinkers. Previous studies have also shown that the combined pharmacological effects of cigarettes and alcohol can lead to a heightened sense of reward for the users.