Adults constitute the vast majority of the US population, and state-level cannabis legalization laws are applied directly to adults. Problem CU could affect multiple domains of adults’ lives and health, such as cannabis abuse/dependence symptoms, cannabis-involved car accidents, and cardiovascular conditions as well as emergency department admissions (Asbridge et al., 2012; Blow et al., 2011; Thomas et al., 2014). Our CUD estimates from the national sample have implications for surveillance of CUD and clinical interventions. We used the largest samples (N=340,456) of adults aged ≥18 years available to study indicators of CU problems (abuse, dependence). In the population level, blacks, native-Americans, and mixed-race adults on average were more likely than whites to have a CUD; and Asian-Americans, native-Hawaiians/Pacific-Islanders, and Hispanics were less likely to have a CUD. Among cannabis users, blacks, native-Americans, and mixed-race adults had the highest prevalence of weekly CU (range: 55.02–60.84% vs. whites 47.87%). Our results of monthly and weekly CU were consistent with the CUD patterns that added support for racial/ethnic differences in CUD. These findings were in line with racial/ethnic variations in treatment admissions in the TEDS (SAMHSA, 2015). Considered jointly, problem CU (abuse or dependence) may impact healthcare use or treatment demand.
