Marijuana Treatment Project 4

Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the US, but treatment for marijuana dependence is not fully effective. In the current proposal we are exploring the idea that more tailored teaching of coping skills may result in improved outcomes for marijuana-dependence than those seen thus far. Participants will be 275 men and women meeting criteria for marijuana dependence and randomly assigned to 9 sessions of treatment in one of 4 treatment conditions: Standardized MET plus CB (SMET-CB); SMET+ CM (SMET-CB-CM); IATP; or IATP + CM (IATP-CM). Patients in all treatments will engage in ES via cell-phone for two weeks prior to treatment, for a weekly period during treatment, for another week after treatment has ended, and for two weekly periods at months 8 and 14. In the IATP conditions, the information gathered from the pretreatment and during-treatment ES periods will provide data for a functional analysis of patients' drug use and urges to use. It is hypothesized that IATP conditions will yield significantly better coping skills acquisition than SMET-CB conditions, both at posttreatment and at extended follow-ups, and that change in coping skills will predict better outcomes for the IATP conditions