Most of the time when people think of cannabis users, they likely think of movies like “American Ultra”. These movies present cannabis users as lazy or slackers. Recently, a group of researchers studied whether or not there was, in fact, a connection between the cannabis use and slacker mentality in adolescents. These researchers found that there was, in fact, no connection. On the other hand, some researchers have discovered that there is a connection when looking at young or middle-aged adults. In looking at the results presented by the research, viewers will see there is evidence pointing to the contrary.

Study

The first study focused on 401 adolescents aged between 14 and 17. These participants completed five bi-annual assessments, during which the researchers used two self-report questionnaires. They used these questionnaires to assess the participants’ motivation at three timepoints. The researchers called these questionnaires the Apathy Evaluation Scale and the Motivation and Engagement Scale. Using special modeling, the researchers characterized patterns of cannabis use and motivation over time.  

For the second study, researchers created a survey and advertised it through Facebook, as well as Colorado clinics and dispensaries. The advertising targeted individuals over the age of 21 in legal states who liked Facebook pages related to cannabis. The researchers asked the participants demographic questions and more on-topic questions. Two of the most important questions involved how soon before or after exercising do they use cannabis. The researchers considered the participants to use it concurrently with exercise if they used it within one to four hours of exercising. The researchers asked participants in the “concurrent” group how much they think cannabis affects the exercise experience.

Results

Where the first study demonstrated a frequent increase in cannabis use over time, the disengagement and planning facets of motivation also increased over time. However, other aspects of motivation remained stable. At baseline, as the reported cannabis use increased, disengagement increased as well, though planning and valuing of school decreased. At the same time, the researchers found that greater baseline cannabis use predicted smaller increases in disengagement over time.

The researchers then controlled the effect of sex, age, depression, and use of alcohol and nicotine. Upon this controlling of variables, they found that the baseline connection between cannabis use and the value of school remained significant. In short, the researchers found that while cannabis uses increased, the only aspect of motivation that changed noticeably was the value of school.

For the second study,  605 out of 620 respondents answered the cannabis-exercise questions. The researchers included this 605 in the study. Those using cannabis concurrently with exercise reported more minutes of aerobic exercise than those that weren’t in the concurrent group.

Discussion

In regards to the first study, those running the study found that when examining the connection between cannabis use and the amount of motivation in adolescents, there was a lack of evidence connecting the two. However, there was a drop in the value of school among those studied. That said, please remember that those studied were adolescents, which is an age group that generally is not focused on school.

For the second study, while there was a connection found between the amount of exercise performed by the participants using cannabis, it is unclear if there is a correlation between them. The researchers are not certain if cannabis users wanting to exercise more or reasons like enjoyment or performance caused this connection .

In short, these studies need to be continued to be examined in order for either point to be definitively proven. However, on first look, it seems that the belief of a connection between cannabis use and slacker mentality is incorrect.

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