Cannabis Use Report re: Primary Care Patients in Los Angeles

A cry for help from primary care patients: 1/5 want more than just primary care

A New Perspective on Cannabis Use in Primary Care

A new study was just published in JAMA yesterday, titled "Cannabis Use Reported by Patients Receiving Primary Care in a Large Health System." This study takes a close look at how common cannabis use is and reports the potential associated risks among adult patients at a university-based health system in Los Angeles, California. Conducted between January 2021 and May 2023, the research aimed to uncover patterns of cannabis use, which they then label (without second-guessing) as meaningfully correlated to risk factors for Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD), and they surface some generalized reasons why the patients they’ve surveyed are using cannabis.

The study screened 175,734 patients with an average age of 47 years. Among them, 17% reported using cannabis in the past three months. Interestingly, 34.7% of these cannabis users were what they defined as “at moderate to high risk for CUD” (spoiler alert: this is mostly bologna). The study found va…