Cannabis craving in response to alcohol cues in the laboratory and in daily life among adolescents ages 15-17 years.

BACKGROUND: 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. METHODS: Participants were 81 adolescents aged 15-17 years who endorsed past-month alcohol and lifetime cannabis use. They completed a laboratory cue reactivity protocol where they rated their cannabis craving during alcohol cue and control conditions. They also completed 24 days of ecological momentary assessment where they reported multiple times per day on their cannabis craving and whether alcohol cues were visible. RESULTS: 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. CONCLUSIONS: This study adds to prior work suggesting that daily life cannabis craving is elevated when alcohol cues are visible. This cross-cue reactivity may be one factor that drives and maintains alcohol and cannabis use in adolescence.

Momentary Associations Among Minority Stress, Craving, Affect, and Nicotine Use Among Sexual Minority Youth.

OBJECTIVES: Sexual minority youth are more likely to use nicotine relative to heterosexual youth. The minority stress model posits these disparities are partly due to unique stress (i.e., minority stress) specific to their stigmatized identities. However, there is a dearth of research exploring the fine-grained dynamic interplay between minority stressors, mediating processes, and nicotine use in sexual minority youth's daily lives and natural environment. We leveraged ecological momentary assessment over a 30-day monitoring period to test the mediating effects of craving and negative and positive affect on the momentary associations between minority stressors and subsequent nicotine use among sexual minority youth who were active nicotine users and recruited from the community. METHODS: Participants were 85 nicotine users, ages 15-19 years old (M age = 17.96, SD = 1.10; 56.6% cisgender female; 56.6% bisexual; 73.5% non-Hispanic White) and half (51.8%) were daily nicotine users. RESULTS: Results indicated that exposure to a minority stressor was associated with momentary elevations in nicotine craving and negative affect and decreases in positive affect. Nicotine craving and positive affect were also associated with greater probability of subsequent nicotine use. The associations between minority stressors and subsequent nicotine use were mediated through craving and positive, but not negative affect. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings provide the first ecological momentary assessment evidence of these associations among sexual minority youth and help support and advance both addictions and sexual minority-specific models (e.g., minority stress) of nicotine use among youth.

Parent and Adolescent Reports of Parental Monitoring and Sources of Parental Knowledge are Linked to Cannabis Use and Symptom Development in Adolescents.

Objective: Greater discrepancies between parent and adolescent reports of parenting behaviors are associated with poorer adolescent functioning. The present research aims to build from the existing literature by examining unique parent and adolescent perceptions of parental monitoring and distinct sources of parental knowledge (i.e, parental solicitation, parental control, child disclosure) and their association with adolescent cannabis and alcohol use and disorder symptoms using cross-sectional data. Method: Parent-adolescent dyads (N = 132) were recruited from the community and the family court system. Adolescents were ages 12 to 18 (40.2% female; 68.2% White, 18.2% Hispanic). Parents and adolescents completed a questionnaire assessing the four domains of parenting behaviors. Adolescents' substance-use behaviors and related disorder symptoms were assessed via adolescent self-report and semi-structured interviews. Results: Parental ratings of distinct parenting behaviors were higher (more favorable) than their child's reports, as shown in prior studies. Parent-reported parenting behaviors were uniquely related to cannabis use, over and above adolescent reports and the adolescent's age. With regard to report discrepancies, interactive effects of parent and adolescent perceptions of parental control were not statistically significant in our analysis after correcting for multiple tests. Conclusions: While most research relating parental monitoring to adolescent cannabis use relies solely on adolescent perceptions, our study suggests a unique role of parent perceptions for cannabis use and disorder symptoms, respectively. Findings support the importance of considering unique parent and adolescent perceptions of what parents know, as well as how they know it, to understand early cannabis use and problem development.