Australian Rotary Health

Professor Jan Copeland is the Director of the National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre and an Assistant Director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. She is a registered psychologist and has a PhD in Community Medicine and Public Health. Her research interests include the treatment of cannabis dependence in adults and adolescents and the measurement of service utilisation and treatment outcome. 

She has more than 220 publications and has given over 290 papers including key note addresses at national and international conferences. Her research and related activities has attracted in excess of thirty five million dollars. Professor Copeland is involved in a number of community agencies and is currently Chair of the Drug and Alcohol Multicultural Education Centre and on the Board of Odyssey Houses’ McGrath Foundation. She is a member of a number of national and international advisory groups on a range of clinical and policy issues. She is an assistant editor of Addiction, Research Notes, and the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment and a member of the US College on Problems of Drug Dependence.

Cannabis use is a significant problem among Australian adolescents. There is evidence suggesting that substance use interventions for adolescents must target immediate emotional responses to thoughts of using the substance. Thus, graphic or otherwise emotion-provoking warning images may be effective in deterring adolescent substance use. The objective of our research is to develop and pilot test a web-based intervention for adolescent cannabis use that employs warning images aimed at eliciting negative affective responses. 

 

Year 10 and 11 students from 6-10 schools will take part in the research.  Students from half of the schools will be assigned to view 13 graphic (similar to the ones in anti-smoking television campaigns) and emotion-provoking warning images via email over a six-month period. The student will view the image, then rate it in terms of its perceived effectiveness at deterring adolescents from using cannabis. Students will also confidentially answer questions about their cannabis use at the beginning and end of the six months.

 

Students from the other half of the schools will answer the questions about their cannabis use at the beginning and end of the six months without viewing any images. This will allow us to evaluate adolescent perceptions of the images, and also make comparisons between schools to see whether the images are effective in reducing cannabis use.

 

Should the pilot intervention prove successful, an extended version of the program could be developed and tested for effectiveness. This version would incorporate features and activities that appeal to adolescents.