Study: Incentives and therapy help users kick marijuana habit

LITTLE ROCK --A combination of therapy and incentives -- such as clothing and movie tickets -- can be successful in helping someone kick a marijuana addiction, according to a new study.

The study conducted by a University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences professor and researchers at the University of Vermont followed 90 men and women who had been diagnosed as being dependent on marijuana.

One group received vouchers, redeemable for pre-approved uses such as meals, clothing or movie tickets. Another group received cognitive therapy and a third group received both vouchers and therapy. The group that received both had the highest success rate, with 43 percent of subjects no longer smoking marijuana at the end of the 14-week study.

"We found that vouchers generated greater rates of marijuana abstinence compared with therapy alone, but that therapy enhanced the voucher effect following treatment," said Alan Budney, professor in the department of psychiatry in the UAMS College of Medicine. "Together, the combination of vouchers and therapy resulted in higher abstinence rates during the year following treatment than vouchers alone."

"This suggests that therapy helps maintain the initial positive effect of using vouchers to initiate abstinence during treatment."

Participants in the study, which was conducted in Vermont, had the potential to earn a total of $570 to be used for "almost anything pro-social" such as restaurant meals, movie tickets, exercise equipment, children's games or work clothes, said Andrea Peel, a UAMS spokeswoman.

Twice a week, participants could receive their vouchers if they passed drug tests. The average amount earned by participants was $400, Budney said.

In therapy, participants were taught to recognize destructive thinking patterns and to replace them with more realistic perspectives, according to UAMS.

At the end of the 14-week study, 43 percent of the group that received therapy and vouchers had stopped using marijuana, compared with 40 percent of the voucher group and 30 percent of the therapy group.

And, at a 12-month follow-up, researchers found that 37 percent of the group that received both therapy and vouchers was not using marijuana, compared with 17 percent of the voucher group and 23 percent of the therapy group.

Budney, senior scientist at UAMS' Center for Addictions Research, said that the voucher or incentive system could also be useful in treating cocaine, alcohol and opiate dependence.

The research was paid for by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health. The study is published in the April issue of the Journal of Clinical and Consulting Psychology.