Cannabis and Synthetic Cannabinoids Are Used for Different Reasons: Comparing Functional Motives of Use Based on the European Web Survey on Drugs

Abstract Synthetic cannabinoids (SCs) first emerged in Europe during the 2000s, becoming widely accessible over the 2010s. Despite their known high health risks, little is understood about users’ motives for choosing SCs. The 2021 European Web Survey on Drugs (EWSD) reached 48,427 valid respondents from 22 European countries who use drugs. Motives of cannabis and synthetic cannabinoid use were compared while controlling for age and gender effects by logistic regression. Among participants, 93.1% reported last year cannabis use and 4.1% last year synthetic cannabinoid use. The motives of reducing stress, getting high, and enhancing performance and curiosity proved to be more pronounced in the case of cannabis use than in the case of the use of SCs, while the motivation of reducing pain/inflammations was more pronounced in the case of SC use. The findings indicate distinct functional motives underlying the use of cannabis and SCs, demonstrating that SCs serve different needs than cannabis and can no longer be regarded as its substitute. While curiosity was a predominant motive for SC use in the early 2010s, the primary drivers of use shifted by the early 2020s.