The effects of social context and opportunity cost on the behavioral economic value of cannabis.

Objective: Behavioral economics suggest that cannabis reinforcing value (cannabis demand) may be influenced by external, contextual factors such as the social reward that might accompany cannabis use and the presence of opportunity costs (e.g., a next-day responsibility that cannabis use might adversely impact). The present study examined the effect of social context and opportunity cost on cannabis demand and explored whether relations were moderated by cannabis use severity.

Method: Adults with past-week cannabis use recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk ( = 310; 53.5% female, 79.4% White) completed four purchase tasks, in which participants reported how much cannabis they would purchase across escalating prices, to index cannabis demand under varying contexts: (a) solitary, typical responsibilities; (b) social, typical responsibilities; (c) solitary, substantial responsibilities; and (d) social, substantial responsibilities.

Results: The presence of peers significantly increased demand intensity (consumption at zero price) and (maximum expenditure) relative to the solitary conditions. Substantial responsibilities significantly decreased intensity, breakpoint (price at which consumption is fully suppressed), and (price at which maximum expenditure occurs) and increased elasticity (greater price sensitivity). Demand was most inelastic in the social, typical responsibilities condition relative to other conditions. Cannabis use severity was associated with less elastic demand in the solitary, typical responsibilities condition. Those with higher cannabis use severity reported larger differences in demand intensity and between solitary and social conditions, and in demand elasticity between typical and substantial responsibility conditions.

Conclusions: Results are consistent with previous research illustrating social and opportunity costs as determinants of cannabis use behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).