Is there a cannabis epidemic model? Evidence from France, Germany and USA.

Background: Cannabis is the most popular illicit drug in the world, but the process of its diffusion through the population has rarely been studied. The unfolding of the tobacco epidemic was accompanied by a shift in the educational gradient of users across generations. As a consequence, cannabis may show the same pattern of widening social inequalities.

Cohort changes in educational disparities in smoking: France, Germany and the United States.

This study investigates the evolution of educational disparities in smoking uptake across cohorts for men and women in three countries. Nationally representative surveys of adults in France, Germany and the United States in 2009-2010 include retrospective measures of age of uptake that are compared for three cohorts (born 1946-1960, 1961-1975, and 1976-1992). Discrete logistic regressions and a relative measure of education are used to model smoking histories until age 34.