Tobacco isn’t the only thing being smoked in the Deep South, and for many, it’s only half of their habit.

As more states move to legalize medicinal marijuana and some to decriminalize recreational use, a better understanding is needed of how co-use of marijuana affects quit attempts by smokers.

To learn more, a team of addiction investigators at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) led by Erin A. McClure, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, conducted an online survey of those who had used both marijuana and tobacco within a 30-day period about their smoking habits. Their results were published online on November 27, 2018 in Addictive Behaviors.

“We focused on marijuana and tobacco because of the high prevalence of their co-use,” says Saima Akbar, first author on the article. “We don’t fully understand how these substances interact and what the implications are for treatment.”

The MUSC team found that more participants used marijuana and tobacco sequentially than simultaneously. For example, more participants used a tobacco cigarette as a “chaser” to marijuana than smoked joints mixing both marijuana and tobacco, known as spiffs.

The study also found that the degree to which marijuana and tobacco use were interrelated differed greatly by user. However, 26 percent of users reported they had smoked most of their cigarettes around the time they were using marijuana or were high. They were more likely to have a greater tobacco dependence and to smoke more cigarettes per day. [Read More @ Science Daily]