According to new research from Curtin University, rising cigarette prices over the past several years have prompted more older Australians to turn to cannabis as an alternative.
By analysing data from the Australian National Drug Strategy Household Survey, researchers from Curtin’s School of Accounting, Economics and Finance investigated the buying habits of nearly 100,000 Australians from 2001 to 2019.
The findings showed that when cigarette prices increased, cannabis use decreased in Australians under 40 years of age, with no change for people aged between 40 and 50.
However, the research revealed that cannabis use increased among people over 50 when cigarette prices rose.
Lead author of the study ‘Cannabis and Tobacco: Substitutes and Complements’, published in the Journal of Population Economics last month, Professor Mark Harris, said he was surprised by the results, as cannabis and tobacco are generally consumed together.
“In economic terms, if they’re consumed together and it becomes more expensive to buy tobacco, you’d expect cannabis consumption to also fall,” Professor Harris said.
“But what we’ve found is the relationships between the drugs and the way people use them, potentially changes with the age of a consumer: cannabis can change from a complement of tobacco to a replacement.”
As part of the study, researchers ran a simulation to examine the impact of a 10 per cent increase in tobacco prices.
They found that 68,000 Australians aged over 50 would begin using cannabis in response, either by increasing existing use or trying it for the first time as a tobacco substitute.
According to the National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2022–2023 by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 11.5 per cent of Australians aged 14 and over, or 2.5 million people, had used cannabis in the past 12 months.
The survey also shows that 8.3 per cent of Australians aged 14 and over smoked tobacco daily, which equates to approximately 1.8 million people, less than half the 19.4% recorded in 2001.
Co-study author Dr Ranjodh Singh believes that consumer behaviour research, like the Curtin study, can help formulate effective health promotion strategies and policies.
“In economics, we have this idea that people behave rationally, that we act according to price. But different segments of the population will respond differently to price increases,” Dr Singh said.
“So, on average, increasing tobacco prices makes cannabis use go down — but the opposite is true for this particular age group. This shows applying blanket policies for everybody may not be the best way to improve outcomes across all demographics.”
