Solitary Cannabis Use Is Closely Linked to Moments of Loneliness

Cannabis is often treated as a social drug, but for many young adults it is also something used alone. That distinction matters because the setting in which cannabis is consumed may reveal as much about a person’s relationship with the drug as frequency or dose.

A newly accepted study in Addictive Behaviors Reports¹ examined how loneliness and solitary cannabis use interact from moment to moment among emerging adults. Rather than asking participants to remember how they felt over the previous month or year, researchers followed 59 cannabis users between ages 18 and 25 for 15 days and repeatedly asked what they were doing, whether they had recently used cannabis, whether they were alone, and how lonely they felt at that moment.

The result was more complicated than a simple claim that loneliness causes cannabis use. Solitary consumption and loneliness frequently appeared together, but the study did not find evidence that loneliness reliably predicted solitary use hours later, or that using cannabis alone caused loneliness to increase afterward.

That nuance matters because young adulthood is already a period in which cannabis use, mental health, sleep, relationships, and changing social environments frequently overlap. Recent research on cannabis use in young adults, for example, has similarly highlighted the difficulty of separating cannabis exposure from the emotional or cognitive factors that may also influence why someone consumes it.

Solitary Cannabis Use Was Common, Not Exceptional

The participants were not meant to represent every young adult who uses cannabis. To qualify, they already had to report using cannabis alone at least twice per week. Within that deliberately high-frequency sample, however, solitary use was strikingly common.

Participants averaged 0.92 solitary cannabis-use episodes per day compared with 0.46 social-use episodes. Most reported using alone at least three or four times per week, and 10% reported more than daily solitary use at baseline.

Importantly, solitary use did not appear to replace social use. People who used cannabis alone more often also tended to use it socially more often. That suggests solitary consumption may sometimes be part of a broader pattern of frequent cannabis use rather than evidence that a person has withdrawn completely from social consumption.

Loneliness Was Linked to the Moment of Cannabis Use

The clearest result involved what researchers call affective loneliness, meaning the immediate feeling of being lonely rather than a broader measure of social isolation.

When participants felt lonelier than was typical for them personally, they were more likely to report using cannabis alone during that same assessment period. For every one-unit increase in momentary loneliness, the odds of solitary cannabis use were 2% higher. Participants also reported substantially greater loneliness during moments that involved solitary cannabis use.

That might seem to support a straightforward self-medication explanation: someone feels lonely, so they use cannabis alone to cope. But the timing data did not support such a clean sequence.

Loneliness at one assessment did not significantly predict solitary cannabis use at the next assessment. Likewise, using cannabis alone did not significantly predict greater loneliness at the next assessment. The two experiences were closely associated in the same moment without showing a clear directional relationship across the hours that followed.

This is particularly interesting alongside broader longitudinal research. A separate study involving more than 4,000 young adults found that loneliness and problematic cannabis use can be associated over much longer periods. Taken together, the studies suggest the timescale being examined matters. Cannabis and loneliness may interact differently over minutes or hours than they do across several years.

What the Study Did Not Find

• Loneliness did not reliably predict solitary cannabis use at the next assessment.
• Solitary cannabis use did not reliably predict greater loneliness at the next assessment.
• Negative or positive social interactions did not significantly predict subsequent solitary use.

The repeated assessments therefore offer a finer view than a conventional cross-sectional survey and suggest that the relationship may operate on a very short timescale.

Solitary Cannabis Use May Be a Context Signal Rather Than a Cause

One useful way to interpret the findings is to think of solitary cannabis use as a context signal. The behavior may identify moments when someone is experiencing a different emotional state, even if the cannabis itself is not causing that state.

A person might become lonely, stay home, and use cannabis within minutes, only for the feeling to fade before the next survey. Another might already intend to use alone and become more conscious of isolation while doing so. Both patterns could produce the same statistical result without establishing direction.

This is one reason cannabis research increasingly benefits from looking beyond simple frequency measures. Context, motive, dose, potency, and social setting can describe very different patterns of use that would otherwise look identical.

Research into why people use cannabis has made a similar distinction. Consumption frequency alone does not necessarily explain the role cannabis serves. Motives can include coping, socializing, relaxation, enhancement, curiosity, or attempts to manage specific symptoms.

For consumers, the practical implication is not that using cannabis alone is inherently problematic. Instead, repeated solitary use may be worth examining alongside the reason for use. Someone intentionally consuming alone to relax after work presents a different behavioral picture from someone repeatedly reaching for cannabis during periods of acute loneliness, anxiety, boredom, or interpersonal stress.

An Unexpected Finding: Fewer Negative Social Interactions

One of the study’s more unusual findings was that participants reported fewer negative social exchanges after episodes of solitary cannabis use. At first glance, that could sound beneficial. The researchers were more cautious.

A person who remains alone after using cannabis has fewer opportunities to argue with someone, experience rejection, or perceive another person as impatient. In that sense, a reduction in negative interactions could reflect avoidance rather than improved relationships.

This creates an important distinction between reducing social friction and improving social wellbeing. Withdrawal can reduce exposure to stressful interactions without addressing loneliness. The study could not determine whether participants intentionally withdrew or simply remained alone after consuming.

That unanswered question is arguably one of the most interesting directions for future research. If solitary cannabis use functions as a temporary retreat from stressful social situations, researchers will need to distinguish adaptive short-term decompression from a pattern that gradually reduces social engagement.

Why Solitary Cannabis Use Deserves More Attention

Previous research cited by the authors has associated solitary cannabis use with greater consumption, more cannabis-related problems, and poorer psychosocial outcomes. The current study does not prove that solitary use causes those outcomes, but it helps explain why social context could be useful when identifying higher-risk patterns.

Frequency alone can miss this distinction. Two people might both use cannabis five days per week, yet one primarily consumes socially while the other uses almost exclusively when distressed and alone. Their weekly use count is identical, but the role cannabis plays in their lives may be very different.

This matters at the population level because cannabis use remains especially common among young adults. The latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 23.3% of Americans aged 18 to 25 reported past-month marijuana use in 2025, a higher proportion than among either adolescents or adults aged 26 and older.

That does not mean one quarter of young adults have problematic relationships with cannabis. It does mean that relatively subtle differences in how, why, and where cannabis is consumed could affect millions of people, making behavioral context an important area of research.

Could Real-Time Interventions Work Better?

The study also raises an interesting possibility for cannabis interventions. If loneliness and solitary use are linked most strongly in the immediate moment, interventions delivered days or weeks later may miss the window in which behavior is most changeable.

The authors point toward mobile-based approaches that could eventually respond to changes in mood or behavior as they happen. A person who repeatedly reports acute loneliness shortly before or during cannabis use, for example, might benefit from coping strategies, social connection, or alternative activities delivered during that period.

That approach would also avoid treating all solitary consumption as equivalent. An intervention could focus on patterns associated with distress rather than simply discouraging anyone from consuming cannabis alone.

The Study Has Important Limits

The findings should not be generalized to every young cannabis consumer. Participants were specifically recruited because they already used cannabis alone at least twice weekly, making this a study of frequent solitary users rather than the general population.

The sample was also small, with 59 participants, all living in New York State. It was predominantly Black and female, and most participants were enrolled in college. The findings therefore need replication across different populations, age groups, legal environments, and patterns of cannabis use.

The momentary surveys were intentionally brief, so they did not capture several factors that could help explain why someone chose to use cannabis alone, including craving, boredom, concealment, impulsivity, or specific motives for consumption. The researchers also relied on self-reported cannabis use and subjective intoxication.

The Bigger Question Is Why Someone Chooses to Use Cannabis Alone

The study adds an important layer to the discussion around cannabis and mental health. Solitary use appears to be closely tied to moments of loneliness among frequent young adult users, but the evidence does not support saying that loneliness simply causes solitary cannabis use or that consuming alone makes people lonelier afterward.

Instead, the relationship may be immediate, situational, and highly individual. That shifts the most useful question from “Do you use cannabis alone?” to “What is happening when you choose to use cannabis alone?”

That distinction could eventually help researchers, clinicians, and consumers identify when solitary use is simply a preference and when it may be functioning as a response to emotional distress. For a substance that can serve recreational, social, medical, and coping roles, understanding the context of use may be just as important as counting how often it occurs.

References:

¹ Wedel, A. V., Sanders, B. S., & Park, A. (2026). Me, myself, and high: Precipitants of emerging adult solitary cannabis use. Addictive Behaviors Reports, 100753. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.abrep.2026.100753