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Cannabis and Psychedelic Use Increasing Among Young Adults

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Cannabis and Psychedelic Use Increasing Among Young Adults

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While rates of alcohol and tobacco use have decreased among young adults in the last decade, rates of cannabis and psychedelic (i.e., magic mushrooms) use have continued to increased access related to legalization and shifting social norms (NIH, 2023).

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Cannabis and Psychedelics Are Marketed on Social Media

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Cannabis and Psychedelics Are Marketed on Social Media

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Despite restrictions on social media platforms that limit the direct sale of cannabis (products containing THC), psychedelics, and other dissociative drugs, paid advertisements are still used to market these products and enforcement is challenging.

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young adults on smartphone on social media

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The dataset to be used in this study includes 215 paid advertisements from Instagram collected manually via screenshot in Spring 2025. These advertisements have been previously coded using qualitative content analysis, resulting in quantitative counts for themes identified.

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-Date post was collected

-Type of Substance (Cannabis, Psychedelics, Something Else)

-Type of Product (Edibles/Beverages, Combustible/Vaping)

-Imagery Theme (6 subthemes)

-Motivations for Use Theme (6 subthemes)

-Promotion/Warnings Theme (6 subthemes)

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Hypothesis 1: Differences in Marketing Themes by Type of Substance  

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Hypothesis 1: Differences in Marketing Themes by Type of Substance  

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We hypothesize that marketing themes (imagery, motivations for use, promotion/warnings) will differ by substance.

We would like to investigate this research question to better understand how each of these substances is marketed on social media to inform public health surveillance and enforcement policies.

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Hypothesis 2: Differences in Type of Substance by Timeframe During Data Collection  

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Hypothesis 2: Differences in Type of Substance by Timeframe During Data Collection  

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We hypothesize that type of substance will differ by timeframe during data collection (i.e., week 1 versus week 2 versus week 3, etc).

We would like to investigate this research question to better understand how content pushed in paid advertisements changes over time based on engagement with this content.

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Imagery themes were represented roughly the same in both cannabis and psychedelic/other ads.

A higher percentage of psychedelic/other ads mentioned motivations for use themes, including mentions of mood and cognitive improvements and mentions of using psychedelics as an alternative for prescription medication.

A higher percentage of cannabis ads mentioned promotion themes, including sales, shipping, and emojis to avoid moderation by the platform.

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A higher percentage of psychedelic/other ads were collected in the earlier in the day, whereas a larger percentage of cannabis ads were collected at night.

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Psychedelic ads were represented more in the first and last sections of the data collection timeframe relative to cannabis ads.

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With the cannabis and psychedelic landscape rapidly changing, marketing and promotion of these products online is an important public health area to monitor. The results of this study suggest that marketing approaches and time of day ads are shown may differ by substance, and further examination is needed to see if these differences are statistically significant.

Several data collection limitations exist within the current study. Future studies should consider the use of more comprehensive and systematic sampling of this content, potentially across social media platforms, to better understand young adult exposure and how this may influence interest in an uptake of these products.