Grant Number:	1R01CA289409-01A1 Interpret this number
Primary Investigator:	Aston, Elizabeth
Organization:	Brown University
Project Title:	Using Novel Behavioral Economic Measures to Characterize Dual Marijuana and Tobacco Use in Young Adults
Fiscal Year:	2025

PROJECT SUMMARY Young adulthood is a crucial period for understanding the development of substance use disorders, which can lead to the development of cancer later in life. Two substances in particular, marijuana and tobacco, are of critical importance due to their prevalence and potential impact on this vulnerable age group. Marijuana use has reached critically high rates in young adults, and the majority of young adults endorsing marijuana use also smoke tobacco. Dual use of both substances is associated with a greater risk of health and behavioral problems later in life. However, behavioral mechanisms underlying marijuana and tobacco dual use are not well characterized. Novel methods and experimental data are urgently needed to better model and understand behavioral mechanisms underlying young adult dual use of marijuana and tobacco in order to reduce cancer risk across the lifespan. We propose to characterize young adults who smoke of marijuana and cigarettes (YASMCs) using rigorous laboratory-based behavioral economic measures: a novel cross-price elasticity of demand (CPED) task we have developed and an innovative extension of cue-induced demand to assess cross-cue reactivity. CPED can tell us how demand for one substance may shift as the price and availability of another substance changes in a model that approximates real-world tradeoffs. If these substances act as substitutes for an individual, then as the value of one decreases, demand for the other increases. In this case, cessation efforts aimed at one substance may lead to increases in use of the alternative substance. If they are complements, increasing access and exposure to one substance may drive a concomitant increase in demand for the alternative substance. Cross-cue induced demand can tell us the extent to which environmental cues (e.g., smoke, drug paraphernalia) can elicit elevated demand for the alternative substance in the moment. Thus, increased exposure to drug-specific cues could lead to unintended harms such as increased craving for both substances. Participants (N = 120) will be young adults (age 18-25) endorsing current tobacco and marijuana use and will complete 4 experimental sessions: one in which they will complete baseline assessments and the CPED task, 3 cross-cue reactivity sessions (cigarette cues, marijuana joint cue, and “blunt’ or mixed tobacco and marijuana cue; each precede by neutral cues in a single session), and a qualitative exit interview about modes of cannabis and tobacco use. Outcome measures will include: 1) degree of substitutability on the CPED, 2) change in demand for each alternative substance in the presence of target-substance cues, and 3) relationships between these outcomes and other measures of dual use. This proposal addresses NCI’s priority areas of: “Behavioral research in cancer prevention and control: Development and testing of interventions addressing risk behaviors such as: tobacco use” and will contribute to TCRB’s research priority area of “Etiology, predictors, correlates, and determinants of tobacco use, nicotine dependence, and cessation”.





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