While rapid technological advances have made the search for specific gene variants influencing substance use disorders feasible, genomewide association studies of adolescent samples are lacking. Furthermore, the extent to which specific genes, individually or in concert with environmental factors, influence substance use at various developmental milestones or continuously, across the lifespan, need to be identified. How these genomic and environmental factors moderate efficacy of interventions related to adolescent substance use are increasingly under investigation and there is no doubt that a refined understanding of the genetic architecture of adolescent substance use and misuse will be of considerable clinical utility. To this end, one possible future avenue could involve the identification of genes whose measured effects could be incorporated into twin models to begin to ‘explain away’ the extent to which latent genetic factors influence SUDs. From a genomic perspective, the era of ‘next-generation sequencing’ has arrived108 – whether deep sequencing genomic regions of interest will reveal new polymorphisms that may have considerable impact on the etiology of adolescent SUDs remains to be seen. Finally, the extent to which prolonged exposure
