Research & Resources

Most adolescents who drink alcohol also use cannabis, and adolescents who use both substances experience worse long-term outcomes than adolescents who use only one or the other. Recent clinical trials with adolescents and emerging adults show that alcohol cues are associated with elevated cannabis craving in the natural environment but not in the laboratory, highlighting cross-cue reactivity as a potential intervention target. This study extends this work to a younger sample of adolescents at an earlier stage of substance use to examine the generalizability of prior findings and inform etiological mechanisms. Participants were 81 adolescents aged 15-17 years who endorsed past-month alcohol and lifetime cannabis use. Mixed models demonstrated lower cannabis craving following alcohol cue presentation in the laboratory compared to control cues, but higher cannabis craving during moments when alcohol was visible in daily life compared to moments when alcohol was not visible. Frequency of cannabis use at baseline was associated with greater cannabis craving in the laboratory and in daily life regardless of cue type or alcohol visibility, and cannabis craving following alcohol cue presentation in the laboratory was positively related to daily life cannabis craving across contexts.

This paper, “Cannabis craving in response to alcohol cues in the laboratory and in daily life among adolescents ages 15-17?years,” was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and published in the journal Alcohol, clinical & experimental research.