Research & Resources

High school students who reported using cannabis, alcohol, or nicotine were more likely to have thoughts about suicide. In this study researchers stated that high school students who reported using cannabis, alcohol, or nicotine were more likely to have thoughts about suicide, feel depressed or anxious, have unusual experiences, and exhibit inattention or hyperactivity. The researchers sought to determine whether substance use was dose-dependently associated with various psychiatric symptoms in 15,000 high school students across Massachusetts, and whether these associations differed depending on the type of substance used. They found that alcohol use, cannabis use and nicotine use were each associated with an increased prevalence of suicidal thoughts as well as depression/anxiety symptoms, psychotic experiences, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder symptoms. Thoughts of suicide were approximately five-times more prevalent among high school students who used substances daily or near daily compared with those who did not. Increases in psychiatric symptoms were detected even among adolescents with relatively low levels of use. The investigators’ findings were replicated when they examined responses from a national survey conducted in 2021.

This paper, “Substance Use, Suicidal Thoughts, and Psychiatric Comorbidities Among High School Students," was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and published in the journal JAMA pediatrics.