Dr. Angela Stevens recently authored a paper on alcohol and cannabis co-use, "Nuanced relations between simultaneous alcohol and cannabis use motives and negative consequences among college students: The role of multiple product use" published in Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology. This manuscript was co-authored by Brown BSHS Doctoral Student, Holly Boyle, and Drs. Alexander Sokolovsky, Helene White, and Kristina Jackson.  

In a large multi-site college student sample using repeated daily assessments for 54 days, they found that co-using alcohol and cannabis for social reasons, to have fun, or because it was offered drove using multiple alcohol products (e.g., liquor + beer) on that day, which, in turn, was linked to negative consequences. Co-using to cope was linked to multiple cannabis product use (e.g., leaf + concentrate), but using multiple cannabis products on a given day was not associated with negative consequences. Findings support harm-reduction approaches that suggest people limit themselves to one type of alcohol product during a drinking occasion to reduce unwanted consequences.