Examining the effect of cannabis cues on cannabis demand in sleep, driving, and typical drug-use contexts

Given the expanding legal cannabis market in the U.S., it is vital to understand how context impacts cannabis use. Therefore, we explored the effect of cannabis cues and cannabis-use context on cannabis demand in 79 adults who reported smoking cannabis at least weekly. Participants completed a single laboratory session consisting of four hypothetical marijuana purchase tasks (MPTs) involving either a typical use situation or a driving or sleep context. The MPTs were alternated with exposure to cannabis or neutral picture cues based on block randomization by gender. Cannabis cues increased self-reported craving for cannabis ( p =.044) but did not significantly alter demand ( p s =0.093–0.845). In the driving context, participants demonstrated a significant reduction in cannabis demand, indicated by lower intensity ( p <0.001), O max ( p <0.001), and P max ( p <0.001), breakpoint ( p =.003), and higher α ( p <0.001). The sleep context was associated with significantly greater α ( p <0.006) but nonsignificant effects for other indices ( p s =0.123–0.707). Finally, cannabis cues increased O max ( p =.013) and breakpoint ( p =.035) in the sleep context but not in the typical-use context. These findings suggest that cannabis-use behavior is sensitive to contingencies surrounding driving after cannabis use and may also be sensitive to sleep contexts in the presence of cannabis cues. Since this is the first study to examine driving and sleep contexts, we caution against drawing broad conclusions until future research is conducted to replicate these findings.