Marijuana Use and Auditory Hallucinations Among Incarcerated Youth

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:  As legalization of marijuana use begins to spread it is important to investigate potential consequences of marijuana use among adolescents, who may be especially vulnerable. It is widely established that youth who engage in delinquent activities are at greater risk of using substances, including marijuana. An increasing body of literature has linked marijuana use with auditory hallucinations among adolescents. However, the extant literature has not explored whether the total number of drugs used may have a stronger association with hearing voices than marijuana use alone. This study explores whether marijuana use is associated with auditory hallucinations among incarcerated youth after controlling for other factors.

METHODS:The study utilizes existing data from residents of 27 Missouri Division of Youth Services (DYS) facilities. When Missouri’s juvenile courts commit 13-17 years old to care, DYS serves as these youths’ legal guardian. The sample was 87% male; 33% African American, 55.4% White, 3.9% Hispanic and 1.5% other races. The mean age was 15.5 (S.D. = 1.2) years old. The dependent variable captures whether youth have “ever heard voices of someone who was not there” (yes=1); 14.66% of the sample reported hearing voices. Demographic variables included age, race (Black =1, with other categories as the referent), whether youth lived in an urban area (yes=1; 39.14%), and whether the family received welfare (yes=1; 40.34%). Two measures assessed marijuana use. The first captures how often during the past year the youth used marijuana, ranging from never to two to three times a day with the largest proportion of youth (36.24%) using two to three times a day; and (2) the age at which youth initiated marijuana use, which ranged from 1 to 16. The total number of drugs used, which ranged from 0 to 12. The 5-item MAYSI- 2 Suicide Ideation scale asked youth whether (yes=1) they have (1) ever wished they were dead; (2) felt like life was not worth living, (3) felt like hurting themselves, (4) felt like killing themselves, and (5) ever given up hope for their life; the α coefficient was .91 (responses ranged from 0 to 5, with a mean of 2). We used logistic regression to investigate correlates of hearing voices. Analysis was done in Stata 13.1.

RESULTS: This study found a small effect for the age when youth first initiated using marijuana (OR=.87, p < .05), but as lifetime marijuana use increased the odds of hearing voices decreased (OR=.74, p < .05). The odds of hearing voices increased significantly as the MAYSI score (OR=1.56, p<.001) and total drugs used increased (OR=2.02, p<.05).

CONCLUSION: This study expands our understanding of factors that contribute to adolescent auditory hallucinations. This study’s findings demonstrate the importance of preventing early initiation of marijuana use, and of fully assessing the total number of drugs used among adolescents who experience auditory hallucinations.