Discounting of Delayed Monetary and Cannabis Rewards in a Crowdsourced Sample of Adults

Excessive delayed reward discounting (DD) is observed across many addictive disorders. However, research on DD among cannabis users is limited, with even less research on discounting of cannabis rewards. This study examined monetary and cannabis reward discounting among cannabis and noncannabis users. A large sample of adults (N = 2,857) recruited from an online crowdsourcing platform was assessed on demographics and DD of monetary ($10, $100) and cannabis (10 g) rewards. Analyses of variance were used to evaluate magnitude and commodity effects. Hierarchical multiple regression models were run to assess whether cannabis use frequency was associated with discounting rates for monetary and cannabis rewards. A magnitude effect was found for the monetary rewards where $10 was discounted more steeply compared to $100 (p < .0001). A commodity effect was found where discounting was higher for the 10g cannabis reward compared to monetary rewards (ps < .05). Regression models controlling for demographics and other substance use indicated severity of cannabis problems significantly predicted discounting of $100 (beta = .045,p < .05) and 10 g of cannabis (beta = .088, p < .05). Cannabis use frequency was not significantly associated with any DD measures after controlling for other substance use (ps > .05). These results suggest the association between cannabis use and DD is complex and generally small in magnitude. This study adds to the literature on DD and cannabis use and suggests the need for further studies to determine the extent to which cannabis use impacts DD. both chronically and acutely.