{"id":26969,"date":"2024-12-13T11:10:24","date_gmt":"2024-12-13T03:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/?post_type=media-release&p=26969"},"modified":"2024-12-13T11:10:30","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T03:10:30","slug":"older-australians-turning-to-cannabis-as-cigarette-prices-rise","status":"publish","type":"media-release","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/media-release\/older-australians-turning-to-cannabis-as-cigarette-prices-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Older Australians turning to cannabis as cigarette prices rise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

New research<\/a> from Â鶹ֱ²¥ has revealed increasing cigarette prices over the past several years have seen more older Australians turn to cannabis use as an alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Researchers from Curtin\u2019s School of Accounting, Economics and Finance<\/a> investigated the buying habits of nearly 100,000 Australians from 2001 to 2019 by analysing data from the Australian National Drug Strategy Household Survey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team found when cigarette prices increased cannabis use decreased in Australians under 40 years of age, with no change for people aged between 40 and 50.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it also showed cannabis use increased among people aged over 50 when cigarette prices rose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Study author John Curtin Distinguished Professor Mark Harris<\/a> said the results were surprising because cannabis and tobacco are generally consumed as a bundle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn economic terms, if they’re consumed together and it becomes more expensive to buy tobacco, you’d expect cannabis consumption to also fall,\u201d Professor Harris said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut what we\u2019ve found is the relationships between the drugs, and the way people use them, potentially changes with the age of a consumer: cannabis can change from a complement of tobacco, to a replacement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of the study, researchers ran a simulation of what would happen if tobacco prices rose by 10 per cent through higher taxes or other means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They found 68,000 people aged over 50 would start using cannabis in response, whether increasing existing cannabis use or opting to try cannabis for the first time as a tobacco substitute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Co-study author Dr Ranjodh Singh<\/a> said applying consumer behaviour research could help create effective health promotion strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn economics, we have this idea that people behave rationally, that we act according to price,\u201d Dr Singh said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut different segments of the population will respond differently to price increases, that\u2019s why we use the term \u2018life cycle approach\u2019 when looking at consumption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo on average, increasing tobacco prices makes cannabis use go down \u2014 but the opposite is true for this particular age group.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Singh said the findings could help shape future health policies and messaging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis shows applying blanket policies for everybody may not be the best way to improve outcomes across all demographics,\u201d Dr Singh said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study was conducted in collaboration with RMIT University\u2019s Dr Preety Srivastava.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Cannabis and tobacco: substitutes <\/em>and complements\u2019<\/em> was published in the Journal of Population Economics<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New research from Â鶹ֱ²¥ has revealed increasing cigarette prices over the past several years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4457,"featured_media":26970,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"5950,8404,5499,8279,4724,4833","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[322,4],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-26969","media-release","type-media-release","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fbl","category-research"],"acf":{"experts":false,"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":[{"title":"","qualification":"","link":"","description":"","faculty":""}],"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":[22646,24381]},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Cannabis-tobacco-study-1000x500.jpeg","author_meta":{"first_name":"Sam","last_name":"Jeremic","display_name":"Samuel Jeremic"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/26969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/media-release"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/26969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26969"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=26969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}