Illicit drugs are substances which non-medical use is prohibited by international drug control treaties

In the same way, assertiveness and the abilities to appropriately perceive and understand emotions were explanatory of cannabis use when offered by friends in both adolescent age groups. Likewise, attentiveness to one’s own emotions acted as a risk factor only in the oldest age group. This pattern of results suggests that emotional components have value when it comes to improving thoughtpatterns . Moreover, they are an important preventive factor for risk behaviors such as cannabis use in the adolescent stage. In this study, active coping with strategies such as planning, humour, acceptance, cognitive reappraisal, etc., was related to lower frequency of cannabis use in the last year. This result is aligned with other investigations in which a negative association was found between active coping and behaviors related to the use of addictive substances in the adolescent population . A recent longitudinal study has revealed that greater active coping in middle adolescence prospectively predicts lower cannabis use in late adolescence . These data suggest that active coping makes it possible to control stressors through a broader repertoire of responses .

This aspect could explain responsible decision-making by helping to prevent the use of cannabis at an early age. On the other hand, the avoidant coping style predicted a greater probability of ever having tried cannabis. This result is in accordance with recent research , which found a positive association between this coping style and a greater probability of alcohol and cannabis consumption, as well as a greater quantity and frequency of use of these substances in adolescents. In this study, avoidance coping style was associated with cannabis use at some point in life for the oldest adolescent age group . The literature has highlighted that the use of cannabis begins at around the age of 14 and may be a way of regulating unpleasant emotional states due to a lack of personal resources , which could facilitate maladjustment and avoidance behaviors in the face of problems in the older group . It should be mentioned that, despite the fact that social coping correlated negatively and significantly with some variables of cannabis use, it did not have high explanatory power when considering the other personal factors. Despite this, the obtained results suggest that clinical and educational interventions could be beneficial in the development of positive coping strategies and also contribute to the reduced use of harmful substances such as cannabis at these ages.

Regarding the role of assertiveness in this study, it should be noted that it was associated with cannabis use at some point in life. This result was the same for the older group and for the use of cannabis when offered by friends. In agreement with the previous research , our results contribute to the proposition that assertive responses allow the effective management of situations related to the use of drugs, thus reinforcing an adolescent’s ability to withstand peer pressure. The influence of the peer group during this period has frequently been suggested as one of the factors most associated with cannabis use . Based on the previous research , non-normative peers are likely to promote adolescent cannabis use, which in turn can be seen as a maladaptive means of constructing and establishing personal and social identity, especially in the older group . For this reason, it could be said that having assertiveness skills has a favourable influence when strong resistance to peer pressure is required, as this is something that reduces young people’s vulnerability to the risk of consumption at these ages. In relation to trait EI, a greater perceived ability to repair negative emotional states by prolonging positive ones predicted a lower probability of ever having used cannabis in both age groups .

Likewise, a greater perceived ability to understand and repair one’s own negative emotional states was associated with a lower quantity and frequency of cannabis use in adolescents. The findings of this study are aligned with others in which a negative relationship was found between scores in emotional repair and clarity and the use of addictive substances in adolescents and university students . Our results support the idea that adolescents who better understand their emotions and have a better implementation of strategies for regulating negative emotional states are less likely to use cannabis as a way to mitigate aversive emotional states . In this study, on the other hand, a high level of emotional attention predicted a greater probability of consumption due to peer pressure, a result that was the same for the older group . These data are in line with what was found in previous literature: Higher levels of emotional attention were associated with alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis abuse in adolescents and university students . In this sense, emotional attention hasshown positive associations with anxiety, depression, and misadjusted coping strategies such as ruminative thinking in young people . Given that the onset of cannabis use occurs at around the age of 14 , it could make sense that emotional attention acts as a facilitator of consumption in middle adolescence, a period in which the search for personal identity, distancing from family values, and the need for peer acceptance are also accentuated.