Sex Differences in Response to Marijuana in a Social Setting

Abstract

Due to the failure to include women in the subject samples of most experimental investigations of the effects of cannabis, the possibility exists that the data obtained on this social intoxicant are applicable to only 49% of the population. Those few studies that have compared males and females have focused on performance variables and have demonstrated very few differences. It was hypothesized that the most likely area for male/female marijuana differences would be that of social interactions and behaviors related to these interactions. In a relaxed, informal atmosphere, Es videotaped the social interactions of groups of female friends, female strangers, male friends, or male strangers as they smoked coltsfoot, placebo, and marijuana. In addition to social-condition and drug-condition differences, we obtained statistically significant effects indicating that the women responded both to the social situations and to the drug differently from the men. In general, the women interacted with each other more positively than did the men. These effects were paralleled by sex differences in mood, person perception, and even in how pleasurable or annoying the experimental tasks were. These data are of import not only in the area of cannabis research but in the field of social interactions and the study of female/male differences as well.