Behavioral Treatment of Adolescent Substance Use

The study will test two novel strategies to enhance outcomes. Working Memory Training (WMT), an efficacious method for strengthening specific cognitive processes, aims to improve factors (e.g., delay discounting / impulsive decision-making) that have shown a strong relation to substance use and treatment response. Second, more intensive and higher magnitude CM (ICM) will be used to motivate abstinence among teens who are not abstinent by Week 4. The investigators hypothesize that these strategies will improve outcomes by modifying a fundamental cognitive system involved in making choices to engage in risky behavior and by increasing motivation to abstain in early nonresponders. Aim 1 will pilot and refine the new procedures in a community clinic in preparation for the randomized trial. A sequential, multiple assignment randomized trial (SMART) will allow the study to determine the most effective first-line treatment and the most effective adaptive strategy (Aim 2). All teens will begin treatment with CM or CM/WMT. After 4 weeks, responders will continue in their first-line treatments, while nonresponders will be randomized to ICM or to continue with first-line treatment. Aim 3 will conduct mechanistic analyses to assess whether cognitive changes related to WMT engender increased abstinence, and whether specific tailoring variables moderate treatment effects. Aim 4 will gather formative data on implementation factors to inform future large-scale studies and dissemination efforts. Primary hypotheses are: (1) first-line treatment with WMT will improve abstinence outcomes and reduce relapse; (2) strategies with ICM for nonresponders will result in better outcomes than those without; (3) WMT will reduce delay discounting, which will predict outcome. The unique approach holds promise for reducing multiple types of risky behaviors by affecting basic mechanisms that determine impulsive decision-making.

Inclusion criteria

Participants must be 12 to 26 years of age, must live at home with the parent who will participate, report using marijuana during the previous 30 days or provide a marijuana-positive urine test, meet criteria for cannabis abuse or dependence, and have a parent who can participate.

Exclusion criteria

DSM criteria for dependence (likely to be adjusted for DSM-5 Use Disorder) on alcohol or other drugs other than marijuana (use of or meeting criteria for abuse of other substances will not be an exclusion criterion), active psychosis, severe medical or psychiatric illness limiting participation, or pregnant or breast-feeding.