Cannabis Beliefs Among People in Addiction Recovery: What a 507-Person Survey Found

CED Clinical Relevance
A cross-sectional survey of 507 people in recovery from substance use disorders found that current cannabis users held more favorable beliefs about cannabis than former or never-users, and that people with mild cannabis use disorder believed cannabis was less addictive than people with severe cannabis use disorder, a pattern not seen for other substances.

Clinical Insight | CED Clinic
Published in the Journal of Cannabis Research, this study surveyed 507 adults in recovery from substance use disorders about their cannabis use status and their beliefs about cannabis’s social acceptability, safety, benefits, risks, and addictiveness, comparing those beliefs to beliefs about alcohol, cigarettes, and cocaine.

Participants were on average 47.2 years old, 67.3% female, and split roughly into thirds by cannabis use status: 35.9% currently used cannabis and 51.3% had formerly used it. Current users were more likely to report using cannabis for therapeutic purposes and held more positive views of its acceptability, safety, and benefits than former or never-users. People who had never used cannabis rated it as least socially acceptable and least safe.

Across the whole sample, participants believed cannabis was less addictive than alcohol, cigarettes, and cocaine. But within that, current users rated cannabis as significantly less addictive than former or never-users did, and among people specifically diagnosed with cannabis use disorder, those with mild CUD believed cannabis was less addictive than those with severe CUD. That severity-linked belief gradient did not appear for people’s beliefs about other substances they had disorders with.

Why This Matters
This is self-reported belief data, not an outcomes study, and it cannot show whether beliefs shape use or use shapes beliefs. Its clinical value is in what it reveals about how heterogeneous the recovery population’s relationship with cannabis actually is. A one-size-fits-all abstinence conversation about cannabis may land very differently depending on where a given patient sits on this belief spectrum, and clinicians working with patients in recovery may want to ask directly about cannabis beliefs, not just cannabis use, since the belief pattern tracked more closely with use status and CUD severity than a simple current-user-versus-not framing would suggest.

Study Snapshot
Citation: “Cannabis use and beliefs among people in recovery from substance use disorders.” Journal of Cannabis Research. 2026 Jul 3. PMID: 42400078. DOI: 10.1186/s42238-026-00461-5.
Design: Cross-sectional online survey, n=507 adults in recovery from substance use disorders.