In other words, cannabis use to prevent or deal with NA is unlikely to be a strong explanatory factor for cannabis use in this population. NA and likelihood of reporting intentions to use cannabis were both at their highest in the afternoon and evenings, but higher NA was related to a lower likelihood of intending to use cannabis. One explanation is that social contexts that are more likely to occur in the afternoon/evening may be driving cannabis use in this population, independent of NA. Participants reported using cannabis on 82% of the time points following reports of intention to use, showing a strong relationship between intention to use and actual use. Potentially, the negative reinforcement model may be more useful for explaining cannabis use in users with longer and more problematic cannabis use histories,cannabis vertical farming rather than the college student sample recruited in the current study who may be more likely to use cannabis within the context of parties and social gatherings .
Yet, at least one study among college students of which 87% had a CUD, found evidence in support of the negative reinforcement model of cannabis use . Multiple factors could contribute to the discrepancies between our and previous studies, including variability in use, severity of cannabis-related problems, mood measures and cannabis legislation. Indeed, severity of cannabis use-related problems appears somewhat lower in the current sample compared to that reported in Buckner et al. . Furthermore, it is important to note that our NA items did not include important depressive emotions such as sadness. Thus, more research is needed to confirm or refute the current findings with a broader set of NA items. We failed to find evidence for moderations of mood-cannabis relations by cannabis-related problems which is in contrast to findings from a study in weekly young cannabis users with a roughly similar history of cannabis use. Akin to our findings of lower NA and higher PA when less time had passed since last cannabis use, this study found that cannabis was associated with increases in stimulation, sedation, and high, as well as reductions in craving and tension. Yet, in contrast to our findings, this study found that cannabis’ positive reinforcing effects were higher with higher CUD severity .
Reasons for the discrepancies in findings may be associated with differences in the measurement of cannabis-use problems and how mood was assessed. As far as the authors are aware, ours and this previous study are the only investigations of the potential moderating role of momentary mood and cannabis use. Due to the discrepancies in findings,cannabis drying racks there is a need for more research in this area. Regional and cultural differences may also play a role. We did not collect data on race/ethnicity, but our sample included international students and Amsterdam has a long history of liberal cannabis attitudes and policies, which differ from the ruling cannabis policies for participants in other studies. However, cannabis potency is relatively high in the Netherlands and while smoking pure cannabis is most popular in the U.S., combining cannabis with tobacco is popular in Europe . Method and product of use, as well as attitudes towards cannabis use likely impact the association between cannabis and mood. Other characteristics of cannabis use revealed by our study include a negative time trend for intentions to use. Answering questions regarding cannabis use may trigger self-awareness, influencing participants’ experiences or responses . Moreover, the intention to use was more likely later in the day, showing that cannabis was mainly used in the evening.
NA was higher in the afternoon and evening, similar to what has been found in other studies . Exploring this finding further is beyond the scope of this study, but the experiences of stressful or other negative events may be more common in the afternoon and evening, which in turn may trigger NA . Our EMA assessments were signal-contingent to capture naturally occurring mood fluctuations throughout the day, and as such, we were not able to test whether mood changes from immediately before, to after use. Furthermore, our last daily assessment was sent at 19:00, which may have missed capturing some cannabis using events. Future studies with participant-initiating reporting when they intend to use and later signal-contingent time assessments should be conducted as they may be more sensitive to detect mood responses right after cannabis use. To prevent fatigue and scale floor effects, daily surveys were kept brief and excluded particularly extreme emotions. This rendered our NA items more related to anxiety than depression or general NA, compared to other similar studies .