Michael Mason, PhD has received a 3.2 million dollar grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to conduct a randomized clinical trial to test a text-delivered counseling program for young adults (ages 18 to 25) with cannabis use disorder. Young adults in the U.S. have the highest rate of cannabis use disorder compared to other age groups and are the least likely to seek traditional treatment; in contrast, text-delivered treatments increase access and privacy, which can lessen treatment stigmatization. The grant is titled: Treating young adult cannabis use disorder with text messaged-delivered Peer Network Counseling.
Dr. Mason’s text-delivered intervention, Peer Network Counseling, targets the peer and environmental risk exposure through automated, personalized texts. Participants receive 6 to 8 interactive texts every other day over 4-weeks, as well as booster messages as needed. Key responses from each participant’s baseline and on-going assessments automatically populate the content of the personally tailored intervention. 1,000 young adults (500 from University of Tennessee and 500 from Colorado State University) will be enrolled into the trial and followed for 6 months, providing survey and biological data. Recruitment and enrollment is set to begin in April, 2020.