A 2025 scoping review of 25 studies found suggestive but inconsistent evidence linking video gaming and cannabis use. While most studies reported a positive association, widespread differences in how researchers measured both gaming and cannabis use prevent firm conclusions about the nature, strength, or direction of any relationship.

Video gaming and cannabis use are both rising in prevalence, particularly among adolescents and young adults, and cultural narratives frequently link the two. As gaming disorder gains formal diagnostic recognition and cannabis legalization expands across jurisdictions, clinicians need clear evidence about whether these behaviors genuinely cluster together and, if so, whether shared underlying risk factors should guide integrated screening. This review is the first systematic attempt to map the full scope of that question, making its findings and its acknowledged gaps directly relevant to clinicians, researchers, and policymakers working at the intersection of behavioral health and substance use.

Video gaming and cannabis use are both increasingly prevalent behaviors, particularly among adolescents and young adults in western countries. The WHO’s recognition of gaming disorder in ICD-11 and the expanding legalization of cannabis have heightened interest in whether these two behaviors share underlying risk pathways or tend to co-occur in ways that might compound harm. This scoping review by Jobin and colleagues represents the first systematic effort to map the full body of evidence on the relationship between video gaming, across its entire spectrum from recreational to disordered, and cannabis use, from experimental to problematic. The authors followed the established Arksey and O’Malley framework and PRISMA-ScR guidelines, identifying 25 original studies published between 2000 and early 2025.

The majority of the 25 included studies reported some form of positive association between video gaming and cannabis use. However, several studies found no statistically significant relationship, and a few even reported a negative association. Where reported, effect sizes were generally small: correlations ranged from approximately r = 0.07 to r = 0.11, and odds ratios clustered near 1.0. Critically, all included studies relied on observational, predominantly cross-sectional designs, making it impossible to determine causality or directionality. Both behaviors share overlapping risk factors, including male sex, younger age, impulsivity, depression, and anxiety, raising the possibility that any observed association is driven by confounding rather than a direct link. The authors acknowledge that inconsistent operationalization of both gaming and cannabis use across the 25 studies prevents direct comparison, and they call for standardized measurement and longitudinal designs as the essential next step.

Gaming and Cannabis: Suggestive Association, Inconclusive Evidence

In popular culture, video games and cannabis have long been linked, but what does the actual science say? A new scoping review of 25 studies finds the answer is: probably something, but we cannot yet say what, how strong, or why. This is a review that deserves credit for honesty. Jobin and colleagues set out not to prove a connection but to map the landscape of what has been studied, and their most important finding is not about gaming or cannabis at all. It is about the quality of the questions the field has been asking. The majority of studies in this review reported a positive association between video gaming and cannabis use, which sounds meaningful until you look closely at what “positive association” actually means across 25 different research teams using 25 different sets of definitions. One study measures “gaming” as total hours per week; another measures gaming disorder symptoms using a clinical scale. One records “cannabis use” as any lifetime exposure; another counts past-month frequency. Trying to compare findings across these studies is like trying to compare apples when one researcher calls any fruit over 100 grams an apple, another only counts red ones, and a third includes pears if they seem apple-like. The category simply is not stable enough to build reliable knowledge on top of.

What the review genuinely contributes is a clear-eyed inventory of the field’s limitations. No study in this collection was designed to test causality. Every single one is observational, and the vast majority are cross-sectional, meaning they capture a single moment in time. That is like taking one photograph and trying to determine which came first, the chicken or the egg, when what you actually need is a film reel showing the sequence of events. The shared risk factors between heavy gaming and cannabis use, including impulsivity, depression, anxiety, and male sex, are better documented than any direct behavioral link, which raises a serious question: are we looking at two behaviors that drive each other, or two behaviors that are both symptoms of something else entirely? The review also lacks any formal quality appraisal of its included studies. This means a small survey with a convenience sample from one university is treated with the same weight as a nationally representative study of 47,000 adolescents. That is like counting votes without knowing whether the ballots come from the whole town or only from one neighborhood that happens to favor a particular candidate.

In my practice, when a patient presents with heavy gaming and also uses cannabis regularly, I take note of both, not because one necessarily causes the other, but because both may be signals of underlying distress or disengagement that deserves attention. For colleagues, I would frame this review as a call to screen for both behaviors when either is present, while being careful not to assume a causal link. For policymakers, the evidence is simply too preliminary and too fragmented to justify targeted interventions linking gaming and cannabis. The most impactful investment right now would be in longitudinal research with standardized measurement. A majority vote across heterogeneous, low-quality observational studies is not the same as evidence. In an emerging field, the most important finding is often the quality of the questions we have not yet been able to ask properly.

This scoping review sits at an early stage of the research arc, functioning as a landscape survey rather than a source of actionable clinical evidence. It identifies a pattern of co-occurrence between video gaming and cannabis use that appears more often than not in the published literature, but the underlying studies are too heterogeneous in design, measurement, and population to offer reliable guidance on risk stratification or screening thresholds. Prior systematic reviews of gaming disorder and co-occurring addictive behaviors, such as the work by Burleigh and colleagues (2019), have similarly noted suggestive associations with substance use broadly but have been unable to isolate specific substances or establish dose-response relationships.

From a pharmacological and safety standpoint, neither cannabis use nor video gaming in isolation represents an acute danger in most healthy adults, but the combination of cannabis-related cognitive impairment with extended gaming sessions could theoretically reinforce sedentary behavior, disrupt sleep architecture, and reduce motivation for other activities, particularly in adolescents whose executive function is still developing. Clinicians should be aware that the shared risk factor profile, including impulsivity, negative affect, and social isolation, suggests that addressing underlying psychological distress may be more productive than targeting either behavior in isolation. As a concrete recommendation, when a patient under 25 presents with concerns about either excessive gaming or escalating cannabis use, clinicians should routinely inquire about the other behavior and screen for underlying mood and anxiety disorders that may be driving both.

This is a scoping review following the Arksey and O’Malley (2005) framework and PRISMA-ScR reporting guidelines. Scoping reviews occupy a position in the evidence hierarchy below systematic reviews and meta-analyses because they map the breadth of available literature without formally appraising study quality or pooling effect sizes. The most important inference constraint is that no conclusions about causality, effect magnitude, or clinical significance can be drawn from this design, particularly when the underlying studies are predominantly cross-sectional and methodologically heterogeneous.

This review broadly aligns with prior work by Burleigh and colleagues (2019), whose systematic review of gaming disorder co-occurrence with other potentially addictive behaviors found suggestive but methodologically limited evidence of overlap with substance use. The present review extends that work by including the full spectrum of gaming behavior rather than restricting to gaming disorder, which provides a more inclusive but also more diffuse evidence base. It also corroborates findings from Na and colleagues (2017) regarding shared risk factors such as impulsivity and coping-driven behavior between gaming and substance use. Importantly, no prior review has specifically examined the gaming-cannabis dyad in this level of detail, positioning this paper as a genuinely novel contribution. However, its findings neither confirm nor refute what earlier reviews have suggested; they simply demonstrate that the question remains open and that methodological fragmentation is the primary barrier to progress.

The most consequential analytic choice in this review was the decision not to perform a formal quality appraisal of included studies, which is standard for scoping reviews but particularly impactful here. Had the authors applied a risk-of-bias tool such as the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale, studies with convenience samples, low response rates, or unadjusted analyses could have been flagged and their findings appropriately discounted. Given that several of the null-finding studies appear to involve larger or more representative samples, a quality-weighted synthesis might have shifted the overall balance of evidence toward a weaker or more uncertain association than the raw tally of “most studies found a positive link” implies. Additionally, had the authors stratified findings by cannabis legalization status across jurisdictions, a variable they extracted but did not formally analyze, meaningfully different patterns might have emerged.

The most likely overinterpretation of this review is treating the statement that “most studies found a positive association” as evidence that gaming causes cannabis use or that the two behaviors are reliably and meaningfully linked. This exceeds what the evidence supports for several important reasons. First, the review itself emphasizes that the included studies measured fundamentally different constructs under the umbrella terms “video gaming” and “cannabis use,” making cross-study comparison unreliable. Second, all included studies were observational, meaning even where associations were statistically significant, they cannot distinguish between direct effects, reverse causation, and shared confounding. Third, the effect sizes reported in individual studies were generally small, with correlations in the range of r = 0.07 to 0.11 and odds ratios near 1.0, which are of uncertain clinical importance. The null and negative findings reported in several studies are not outliers but rather integral to the review’s own conclusion that the evidence is inconsistent.

This scoping review contributes the first systematic map of the video gaming and cannabis use literature, revealing a suggestive but inconsistent pattern of positive association across 25 heterogeneous studies. It does not establish causality, directionality, or a reliable effect size. For clinicians, the practical value lies in awareness that these behaviors may cluster together, particularly in younger populations with shared risk factors, rather than in any specific diagnostic or treatment protocol. The field needs standardized measures and longitudinal designs before stronger conclusions can be drawn.

Does playing video games make you more likely to use cannabis?

This review cannot answer that question. While most of the 25 studies found some association between gaming and cannabis use, all of them were observational and cross-sectional, meaning they captured a snapshot at one point in time. It is equally possible that shared underlying factors such as stress, impulsivity, or social isolation drive both behaviors independently, rather than one causing the other.

Should I be worried if my teenager games a lot and also uses cannabis?

Any behavior that dominates a young person’s time at the expense of school, sleep, relationships, or physical activity deserves attention, regardless of whether gaming or cannabis use is involved. This review suggests these behaviors may co-occur, and shared risk factors like depression, anxiety, and impulsivity are worth discussing with a healthcare provider. The evidence does not indicate that gaming itself causes cannabis use, but it is reasonable to ask about one when the other is present.

How strong is the evidence linking gaming and cannabis?

The evidence is currently weak and inconsistent. The reported effect sizes in individual studies are small, several studies found no association at all, and the research community has not yet agreed on how to measure either gaming behavior or cannabis use consistently. This scoping review is best understood as a map of what has been studied so far, not as a definitive answer.

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2. Arksey, H., & O’Malley, L. (2005). Scoping studies: Towards a methodological framework. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 8(1), 19-32.

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4. Burleigh, T.L., Griffiths, M.D., Sumich, A., Stavropoulos, V., & Kuss, D.J. (2019). A systematic review of the co-occurrence of gaming disorder and other potentially addictive behaviors. Current Addiction Reports, 6(4), 383-401.

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9. Castren, S., et al. (2022). Cross-sectional study of Finnish adolescents (N=4,160) examining cannabis use and excessive gaming. [Full citation not available from source text.]

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