Early Cannabis Use Tied to Health Risks in Young Adults

Too young to toke?

STARTER STATS

• Regular cannabis use before age 15 linked to more mental-health visits

• Later teen users (15+) showed greater physical-health service use

• In 2023, 43% of youth aged 16-19 reported using cannabis in the past 12 months (stable since 2019)

• Roughly 20% report daily or almost daily consumption (stable since 2018)

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New research from McGill University suggests that teens who begin using cannabis frequently before age 15 face heightened risk of seeking both mental- and physical-health care as young adults. Those who wait until later in adolescence still show elevated health risks, but the pattern shifts more toward physical conditions. The findings reinforce the importance of delaying regular cannabis use during a sensitive period of brain development.

The team analyzed data from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development, connecting teens’ cannabis-use patterns (tracked yearly between ages 12 and 17) with their health-care records up to age 23. By accounting for early-life circumstances and pre-existing vulnerabilities, the researchers were able to isolate how the age of initiation and frequency of use related to later health outcomes.

The study could help guide targeted prevention strategies, focusing on youth who engage in heavy use at a time when the brain may be especially sensitive to cannabis’s effects.

“Even when we considered several pre-existing risk factors for cannabis use, we still found increasing risks of using healthcare services for mental and physical health problems for youth with early-onset cannabis use.”

— Dr. Pablo Martínez, Postdoctoral Fellow

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