Peer Network Counseling as Brief Treatment for Urban Adolescent Heavy Cannabis Users

Objective: A small body of evidence supports targeting adolescents who are heavy users of cannabis with brief interventions, yet more research is needed to confirm the effectiveness of these studies. We conducted a secondary analysis of our Peer Network Counseling (PNC) study (Mason et al., 2015), focusing on 46 adolescents of the sample of 119 who reported heavy cannabis use at baseline. Method: Urban adolescents (91% African American) presenting for primary health care were randomized to intervention or control conditions and followed for 6 months. We selected cases (n = 46) to analyze based on heavy cannabis use reported at baseline (>= 1.0 times in past month). The ordinal response data (cannabis use) were modeled using a mixed-effects proportional odds model, including fixed effects for treatment, time, and their inter-action, and a subject-level random effect. Results: In the subsample of adolescents with heavy cannabis use, those assigned to PNC had a 35.9% probability of being abstinent at 6 months, compared with a 13.2% probability in the control condition. Adolescents in the PNC condition had a 16.6% probability of using cannabis 10 or more times per month, compared with a 38.1% probability in the control condition. This differs from results of the full sample (N = 119), where no significant effects on cannabis use were found. Conclusions: PNC increased the probability of abstinence and reduced heavy cannabis use. These results provide initial support for PNC as a model for brief treatment with non-treatment-seeking adolescents who are heavy users of cannabis.