One's "pot smoking style" could be the largest indicator of whether or not they will develop an addiction.
In the past researchers have wondered if marijuana with a higher potency of THC was more likely to lead to addiction, Reuters reported. New research suggests this does not have an effect on addiction risk, but smoking style did.
"No drug use is without risk," lead author Peggy van der Pol, a doctoral candidate at the Trimbos Institute of the Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction, told Reuters. "When using stronger cannabis you will likely take in more THC than when using less potent cannabis," she told Reuters Health in an e-mail.
The researchers looked at 89 young adults who used cannabis from coffee houses in the Netherlands and reported smoking at least three times per week for the past year. Three-quarters of the participants were men, and the average age was 23.
A year and a half after joining the study the participants were observed rolling and smoking a joint of their own cannabis while in a comfortable setting.
Those who smoked higher-strength cannabis were more likely to roll larger joints, but smoked more slowly and inhaled less.
"Users seem to partly adjust, or 'titrate' their THC intake, but not sufficiently so to fully compensate for the THC-strength," van der Pol told Reuters. "So users of more potent cannabis are generally exposed to more THC."
"On average, users seem not to fully compensate for cannabis strength by inhaling less smoke. Yet, as the smoking behavior may be an unconscious process, users are likely unaware whether or not they (partly) compensate their intake," she said.
The number of puffs and volume of marijuana in each puff were found to have the highest influence of addiction.
"This is an important study that helps to understand that increasing potency of marijuana may be related to increasing blood levels of THC, despite some reductions in how much people smoke when the marijuana is stronger," Doctor Wilson Compton, Deputy Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) told Reuters.
"This is an important area of research, and we do need a better understanding of it, but we remain concerned particularly for new and young users who may not titrate in the same way as experienced users, and thus may be exposing their brains to higher levels of THC from the outset," he said.
