Study: Married couples who smoke pot experience less domestic violence

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last updated 10 January 2015

The couple that tokes together stays together?

Researchers at the University of Buffalo have found that "couples in which both spouses used marijuana frequently reported the least frequent IPV [intimate partner violence] perpetration." Even when factors like demographic variables, behavioral problems, and alcohol use were controlled, "these findings were robust," The Washington Post reports.

The study's authors looked at data from 634 couples over nine years, beginning in 1996; the pairs were given questionnaires often, asking them about recent drug and alcohol use and physical altercations. Older studies focusing on the connection between marijuana use and domestic violence relied on data from just one point in time, and the findings were inconsistent: some found links between the two, others didn't.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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