Cannabis Use: Does It Make You a Better Parent?

Objective. Cannabis use is becoming more commonplace as more countries and states in the United States are permitting use for both medical and recreational use. Research, however, is mixed on whether cannabis use adversely affects parenting. Much of this work has focused on understanding parenting in samples of parents who use cannabis compared to those who do not; finding that parents who use cannabis report higher levels of aggressive discipline and negative parenting. In our pilot exploratory study, we recruited a sample of cannabis-using parents to understand (1) the extent to which parents were using cannabis in the presence of their child(ren); and (2) the relationship between cannabis use and parenting behaviors; (3) whether the individuals present during cannabis use was related to parenting behavior in concurrent and subsequent time periods.

Design. We conducted a 15-day geographic ecological momentary assessment (gEMA) with 77 parents who used cannabis and lived in the greater Sacramento, California region. Parents were asked to complete 5 surveys per day. In total, parents completed 4,138 total observations. Here we focus on the 2,458 daily observations when parents were with their children. Respondents answered questions about their cannabis use, the context in which it was used, and about parenting behaviors. Data were analyzed using multi-level logistic models.

Results. Parents only used cannabis with their children physically present in 7.7% of time periods. Parents were more likely to use positive parenting during the same and subsequent time periods when using cannabis. We found no association between concurrent cannabis use and aggressive discipline. However, we found cannabis use was related to aggressive discipline during the next time period (OR = 1.97, 95% CI = .95,4.10, p = .001)), but was no longer significant when we controlled for individual-level characteristics (OR = 1.73, 95% CI = .75,3.99, p = .20). Further, who was present when the parent was using cannabis also conferred risks or benefits.

Conclusions. Our findings reveal a complicated relationship between cannabis use and parenting among a sample of cannabis users. As cannabis was first approved for medical use and early adopters of medical cannabis may use it to help with a variety of health conditions such as chronic pain, parents may be using cannabis to address issues related to poor health or self-medicate for pain. Those parenting in poor health report using physical abuse, corporal punishment, and neglect at higher rates than those in good health which could explain why parents who use cannabis may use these parenting behaviors more frequently. Thus, some alleviation of these problems when using may allow them to focus more on positive parenting. Social contexts also appear to be highly important to positive parenting in the time frame after cannabis use, which might be affected by social roles.