This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
Dabbing is an emerging method of marijuana ingestion. However, little is known about dabbing owing to limited surveillance data on dabbing.
The aim of the study was to analyze Google search data to assess the scope and breadth of information seeking on dabbing.
Google Trends data about dabbing and related topics (eg, electronic nicotine delivery system [ENDS], also known as e-cigarettes) in the United States between January 2004 and December 2015 were collected by using relevant search terms such as “dab rig.” The correlation between dabbing (including topics: dab and hash oil) and ENDS (including topics: vaping and e-cigarette) searches, the regional distribution of dabbing searches, and the impact of cannabis legalization policies on geographical location in 2015 were analyzed.
Searches regarding dabbing increased in the United States over time, with 1,526,280 estimated searches during 2015. Searches for dab and vaping have very similar temporal patterns, where the Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) is .992 (
Public interest in dabbing is increasing in the United States. There are close associations between dabbing and ENDS searches. The findings suggest greater popularity of dabs in the states that legalized medical and recreational marijuana use. This study proposes a novel and timely way of cannabis surveillance, and these findings can help enhance the understanding of the popularity of dabbing and provide insights for future research and informed policy making on dabbing.
“Dabbing” is a colloquial term referring to the inhalation of vaporized marijuana concentrates and is an increasingly popular method of marijuana ingestion [
Although dabbing can reduce the ingestion of smoke-related toxins and carcinogens that are typically inhaled when smoking cannabis, there are potential risks of dabbing that have not been studied sufficiently [
Existing studies about dabbing are scarce. The earliest study on dabbing found that the use of BHO had been outside the medical marijuana user community and it is viewed as significantly more dangerous compared with other forms of cannabis use [
Because current national surveys in the United States do not track the use of marijuana extracts [
Internet data such as Google searches have filled many public health data gaps [
Given the great value of Google search data in digital surveillance systems for public health, this study aimed to fill some of the aforementioned knowledge gaps about dabbing using Google search data. In particular, this study characterizes (1) the popularity, on the Web, of dabbing across time compared with other forms of cannabis use; (2) the popularity of dabbing across the US states, including comparisons of searches across states with varying marijuana legalization policies; and (3) the correlations between dabbing-related searches and ENDS-related searches.
A YouTube video screenshot illustrating dabbing.
Data were collected from Google Trends [
To understand the popularity of dabbing on the Web, the search topic “dabbing” was compared with the topics relating to other forms of cannabis use: “cannabis smoking” and “cannabis edibles” (see
During data collection, basic query terms were initially identified according to related literature (eg, “dab rig,” “marijuana smoking,” “cannabis edibles”), and then related terms suggested by Google Trends were added to form candidate terms. Candidate terms were sorted by RSV, and terms with higher RSV were chosen because Google Trends limits the maximum number of words in query terms for a topic to 30. Unclear terms (eg, the single term “dab” can refer to the name of a bank) were omitted. The chosen terms were combined with “+” to form a composite term to collect the search data for a topic. For example, the composite term “dab rig+dab rigs+make dabs...” was used for the collection of searches relating to the topic “dabbing.” The specific terms used in data collection are provided in
National trends for dabbing-related Google searches in the United States, 2004-2015. Panel A compared dabbing searches with searches for cannabis smoking and cannabis edibles, and panel B compared dabbing searches that included terms indicative of dab and hash oil.
Temporal pattern comparison of searches for the dabbing and ENDS topics (ie, dab, hash oil, vaping, and e-cigarette). Each time series is on its own scale (ie, not applicable for relative search volume comparison between different time series).
Choropleth map of raw searches regarding dabbing during 2015.
The RSV of the topic “dabbing” for 2016 was predicted by using the autoregressive integrated moving average model and the R package called forecast [
The top 10 states with the highest RSV were obtained by sorting the raw search data relating to “dabbing” during 2015. The raw data for the 50 US states and the District of Columbia are provided in
As seen in panel A of
As seen in panel B of
In
Temporal correlation of searches regarding dab and related topics. Note that the value in each cell is the Pearson correlation coefficient and all
Electronic nicotine delivery system | Dab | Hash oil |
Vaping | .992 | .783 |
E-cigarette | .600 | .931 |
The 12 states with the highest raw RSV in 2015 were Colorado, Washington, Michigan, South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, California, Oregon, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, and Massachusetts (see
During 2015, the means of searches for type 1, type 2, and type 3 were 55.800, 21.316, and 20.889, respectively. The group means of dabbing searches for type 1 and type 2 were significantly different at the 5% significance level (
Raw dabbing Google searches by predictor for cannabis legal status of the United States. On each box, the central mark is the median, the edges of the box are the 25th and 75th percentiles, and the whiskers extend to the most extreme data points not considered outliers. Two medians are significantly different at the 5% significance level if their intervals of the notches do not overlap. Refer to the help document of [
Dabbing searches are very common in the United States, and they have increased rapidly over time. Similar temporal patterns are found between searches for dab and vaping searches as well as searches for hash oil and e-cigarettes. Overall, dabbing was more frequently searched in the western states than other regions. The average dabbing searches were significantly higher in the states with recreational marijuana legalization than in the states without recreational marijuana legalization.
These findings fill some of the knowledge gaps regarding dabbing surveillance, but improved cannabis surveillance systems are needed to more fully understand the breadth and scope of variations in marijuana use. This study is the first to address the temporal associations between dabbing and ENDS. In general, the results based on search query monitoring can provide novel insights for further research and policy making.
Dabbing is becoming a popular alternative form of cannabis use. It became more popular than cannabis edibles and traditional cannabis smoking after the middle of 2013. When searches for dabbing are grouped into 2 categories, dab and hash oil, the searches demonstrate different developmental patterns over time. After 2014, searches for hash oil decreased, whereas dab searches increased. This suggests that the impact of the variations of dabbing-related terms used by cannabis users should be considered when designing survey questionnaires [
Previous studies have found that some dabbing users use ENDS for dabbing [
On the basis of the editor’s claim, we can infer that the popularity of dabbing increased from an unobvious state before February 2013 to a relatively significant state in July 2013, which attracted the editor’s attention. However, the dabbing searches had begun to increase earlier than the time mentioned by the editor. One explanation is that the wisdom of crowds in Google Trends is more sensitive than individuals in terms of perceiving emerging phenomena, but the true reason still needs to be investigated. Considering the close associations between dabbing and ENDS, addressing dabbing issues together with ENDS may be an effective approach for a better understanding of how a variety of drugs are or can be delivered to the lungs using similar technology [
Among the top 12 states with the largest raw RSV, all states legalized medical marijuana use except for South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and Missouri. Some of these states (ie, Colorado, Washington, and Oregon) have already legalized recreational cannabis use. A recent study claims dabbing is more popular in states that have legalized medical marijuana use, which could be related to the emergence of vaporizer use among patients using medical marijuana and the recent increased availability of marijuana concentrates at medical marijuana dispensaries [
This study found that dabbing searches are more prevalent on the West Coast of the United States, which is consistent with a prior study [
The average dabbing searches were significantly higher in the states with medical and recreational marijuana legalization than in the states with only medical marijuana legalization or the states without medical and recreational marijuana legalization. However, there was no significant difference in the means of dabbing searches between the states with only medical marijuana legalization and the states without medical and recreational marijuana legalization. The findings suggest greater popularity of dabs in the states that legalized medical and recreational marijuana use, which is partly consistent with the previous findings [
Future research on dabbing and similar new technologies for drug delivery is needed to more fully understand use patterns that are tied to demographic characteristics, policy changes, drug availability, changes in technology, and other variables. In addition, there is a need to assess whether searches on topics such as dabbing are associated with actual use patterns (eg, as determined by sales patterns) and reports of adverse events (eg, via poison control or Food and Drug Administration reporting). If clear temporal relationships can be demonstrated between dabbing search changes over time and specific measurable behaviors or health outcomes, it will be possible to more fully characterize the public health value of tracking dabbing and other similar search outcomes as an early warning system of emerging substance use and abuse.
Some limitations need to be taken into account when interpreting this study. First, the Google Trends data in this study are the adjusted relative search values, because Google Trends does not provide actual search volume data. Data for only popular terms are analyzed by Google Trends, which causes the RSV of search terms with extremely low volume to appear as 0. Google Trends data lack demographic information compared with survey data. Although Google Trends data include only search activities using Google, Google accounts for an estimated 65% of the market share of search engines in the United States between January 2008 and October 2015 [
In recent years, the general public has increasingly accepted marijuana legalization, but the potential adverse effects and health risks of dabbing are still being researched. This study provides a novel and timely way of conducting cannabis-related surveillance that may complement the current but limited epidemiologic data on dabbing. In the future, fusing Web-based data, such as Google searches and Web-based surveys, and offline community-recruited samples may help enhance the understanding of dabbing and similar substance use and provide insights for relevant research and informed policy making.
The search terms for collecting Google Trends data.
The raw Google searches for the 50 US states and the District of Columbia.
analysis of variance
butane hash oil
electronic nicotine delivery system
Pearson correlation coefficient
relative search volume
delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol
This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health of the United States (grant number 5R01DA037378-03 obtained by DDZ and SJL) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 71472175 obtained by XZ and grant number 71621002 obtained by DDZ). The funders had no role in the design or conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. We thank anonymous reviewers for their useful comments.
ZZ provided substantial contributions to the conception and design of this work; provided acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data for the work; and drafted the manuscript and revised it critically. XZ provided substantial contributions to the conception and design of this work, provided analysis and interpretation of data for the work, and revised the manuscript critically. DDZ provided substantial contributions to the conception and design of this work, provided study supervision, and contributed to the editing of the manuscript. SJL revised the manuscript critically and contributed to the editing of the manuscript.
None declared.