Up in Smoke: Reciprocal Effects of Cannabis Use and Job Complexity on Extrinsic Career Outcomes

With the passage of cannabis-friendly legislation in the U.S., cannabis use is on the rise and poses increasing challenges to managing human resources in the workplace. However, the literature offers a limited understanding of its long-term implications for career outcomes. Drawing on social selection theory, we argue that cannabis use negatively influences one's extrinsic career outcomes (i.e., income and occupational prestige) over time via lowered job complexity. Furthermore, based on social causation theory, we propose an alternative model in which higher job complexity reduces cannabis use over time to facilitate one's extrinsic career outcomes. Using 8 years of longitudinal panel data from multiple sources, we found support for the hypothesized reciprocal effect between cannabis use and job complexity and their influences on income and occupational prestige. Moreover, the impact of job complexity on extrinsic career outcomes via cannabis use was stronger than the impact of cannabis use on extrinsic career outcomes via job complexity. We discuss this study's theoretical and practical implications for cannabis use and human resource management research and practice.