As she and others in the field continue to expand the research, Montgomery is also working to make cannabis use interventions accessible for people with CUD. She has found when working with African American young adults, for example, messaging specifically about the use of “blunts,” or a cigar that has been hollowed out and filled with cannabis, can be more effective than talking about marijuana use in general.
“It doesn’t mean they’ll go and quit tomorrow,” Montgomery said. “But I think that’s why we need to get specific so that we can really get at what resonates with people and not doing this broad message of, ‘Cannabis is bad and you shouldn’t do it.’ Because that message is just not resonating with people.”
Montgomery is currently actively recruiting participants for a Twitter-based peer-to-peer intervention program specifically for African American young adult blunt smokers.
“Everything that is in there is based on interviews I conducted with young people about why people are using blunts,” she said. “Using that, I could figure out what kind of tweets and messages and what might be helpful in this private, self-help group where people are talking to each other about wanting to reduce their blunt use or quit altogether, depending on their goal.”
Through interviewing people, Montgomery has found that offering alternative ways to manage stress, using humor and talking about how cannabis use affects friends and family around you can be more effective messages.
She also found that young people tend to think they’re invincible and are not phased when told of health issues that can be linked to cannabis use, but may be more likely to respond to messages about how a random drug test at work could cost them their job.
Montgomery explains that people are naturally communicating on social media. She wants to take advantage of that, understand what the trends are and find ways to leverage social media to reduce cannabis use and create effective messaging.
Featured photo at top courtesy of Unsplash.
