According to Bowser et al., (2014), there has been increased prevalence in drug and substance abuse especially among young people. In the research titled, “Get drunk. Smoke weed. Have fun.” A Content Analysis of Tweets about Marijuana and Alcohol,” the authors’ general question was, “What themes of the most influential tweets contain both marijuana and alcohol related terms”. By answering this research question, it would make it easier for the agencies in charge of drug and substance abuse to structure the necessary prevention measures that extend to monitoring online talk about marijuana and alcohol. It is already known that there is a widespread circulation of tweets encouraging the use of marijuana over alcohol. For instance people may argue on social media that marijuana has no side effects and it actually serves as a painkiller whereas alcohol may result to being irresponsible and ruining the reputation of an individual. Unfortunately, the current generation has made it nearly impossible to prohibit the spread of misleading information about marijuana and alcohol. Moreover, individuals have adapted different interpretations of freedom of expression which further makes it hard for content regulators to charge individuals posting information that encourages the use of marijuana and alcohol. This makes the subject of tweets normalizing, offering preference opinion and discouraging both alcohol and marijuana matter a lot.
The subject further matters because the tweets are shared between people in different states where the laws on the use of marijuana vary. For instance, it is likely that people in Chicago will encourage the use of marijuana since they know they will only be asked to pay a certain amount of fine if found in possession of it. People in Illinois on the other hand may tweet encouraging the use of alcohol since the use of marijuana in that state is only allowed for medical use only therefore making the consequences of possession tougher. Moreover, by analyzing these tweets the agencies in charge of drug use regulation can determine the age group mostly affected as well as how these tweets influence the cycle of using each of the two substances. The author’s testable hypothesis is that a preference for marijuana over alcohol would be common and that many tweets would normalize both of the substances.
Methods
In this study, the researcher focused on tweets collected from 5th February to 5th
March 2015 to conduct the data analysis and answer the research question. The tweets singled out for the study were written in English and they had to be mentioning both alcohol and marijuana. The dependent variables in this study were social norms, peer influence and media whereas the dependent variable was the prevalence in the use of marijuana and alcohol and the tweets talking about marijuana and alcohol. The criteria for selecting the variables were based on the general hypothesis of the study. To determine the connection between the dependent and independent variables, data was collected from a social media analytics company known as Simply Measured. The data was specific on marijuana-related tweets and concentrated on terms relating to the use of marijuana. These terms are common and most people can relate to having seen them often on social media .For instance, listeners of hip hop music are familiar with terms such as stoner, blunt and weed whereas listeners of Jamaican music are familiar with terms such as ganja and marijuana. The research therefore used these terms and a few others to determine the marijuana related tweets. The tweets had to also contain alcohol-related terms .Most people are familiar with the terms hangover, vodka, liquor, beer and drunk which are the major terms the researcher looked out for while identifying these tweets. The research was keen in determining that the terms really meant alcohol use since some terms like drunk can be used to mean a different thing for instance drunk in love.
Analysis/Results
Random sampling was implemented through the use of survey select. Klout score was used to determine the tweets that people reacted on by clicking, replying or retweeting. Qualitative analysis was then used to analyze each tweet to determine information on marijuana or alcohol in the tweet including whether the content reflected a preference of marijuana over alcohol, normalized the use of the substances or discouraged both substances. Coding of subthemes was also conducted to create a better understanding of the various tweets. Common subthemes of interest were singled out and later used to code the full set of sampled tweets.
Crowd Flower was used to code the tweets. The findings of the research showed that 90 tweets were not discernibly relating to marijuana and alcohol. These tweets were then discredited and removed from the research.54% of the tweets normalized alcohol or marijuana in that they did not prefer one substance over the other.24% had a preference for marijuana over alcohol.2% had a preference for alcohol over marijuana and 7% discouraged both alcohol and marijuana. The common subtheme in the tweets that preferred marijuana was that marijuana is safer than alcohol. Others partially argued on the grounds of the effects of alcohol compared to the effects of marijuana. On the other hand, those who preferred alcohol argued that they like the effect of alcohol more than marijuana. Generally, 9% of the tweets were retrieved from a marijuana or alcohol-related handle and identified by the presence of a marijuana-related or alcohol-related term in the handle.1 % of tweets came from a government or health professional whereas 99% came from other types of tweeter handle that is not the government, health organization or marijuana-focused or alcohol-focused handle.
Discussion
Result summary
The results of the study support the author’s hypothesis since nearly a quarter of the tweets in the sample studied reflected a preference for marijuana use over drinking alcohol whereas more than half of the tweets in the sample studied normalized the use of both substances.
Author interpretation
In my opinion, the boldest claim made by the author is the interpretation of Obama’s quote, “I don’t think it (weed) is more dangerous than alcohol”, as an encouragement to the users of marijuana to keep using it because it is less harmful than alcohol. The author uses this interpretation to elaborate the popularity of the belief that marijuana is safer than alcohol which is a popular opinion on Twitter.
Future directions
The author recommends that future research should consider mining social media data as a mechanism to understand the attitudes and behaviors of young people compared to the use of self-reported questionnaires. This will be helpful for public health advocates and researchers in developing online and offline prevention programs that can provide normative education and address the prosubstance beliefs. The author further suggests the purchase of social media targeted add, which generally contain content relating to alcohol and marijuana .The purchase can be done by public health organizations .This can help the public health organizations work to more effectively spread prevention messages to increase awareness relating to the risks associated with the use of polysubstance and marijuana.
References
Bowser, B. P., Word, C. O., " Seddon, T. (2014). Prevalence of Drug Use and Abuse. Understanding Drug Use and Abuse, 14-25. doi:10.1007/978-1-137-40212-7_2
Krauss, M. J., Grucza, R. A., Bierut, L. J., " Cavazos-Rehg, P. A. (2016). “Get drunk. Smoke weed. Have fun.” A Content Analysis of Tweets About Marijuana and Alcohol. American Journal of Health Promotion, 31(3), 200-208. doi:10.4278/ajhp.150205-qual-708
