2016

In the United States, adolescent cannabis use is a major public health problem
that if left untreated can potentially have devastating consequences in an
adolescent’s life. Evidence-based counseling treatments are established through
the use of randomized controlled trials whereby adolescents with substance use
issues are typically randomly assigned to one of two counseling treatments to
identify which is most effective in reducing cannabis use at termination and at
follow-up evaluations. Counseling practitioners are ethically bound to maintain
their professional competence with adolescents with cannabis use issues by
keeping current with the professional research literature on treatment
interventions that have established efficacy and effectiveness for this counseling
population. However, for the average practitioner, keeping current with the
counseling intervention research literature can be a daunting and arduous task as
many research studies and systematic reviews are written for the researcher
rather than the practitioner and emphasize research design and statistical issues
and deemphasize the clinical implications. The purpose of this study is to review
and summarize for the practitioner 24 randomized controlled trials involving
counseling treatments for adolescent cannabis use and identify which counseling
treatments work for which adolescent populations for cannabis use.