Cannabis and Mental Health Update: Most comprehensive study in progress!

Halle-fucking-lujah… finally, a college has decided to fund a long-term independent study that will track genetics and genetic markers with cannabis use! 

King's College London is responsible for taking on this hard work. The study will factor in "a combination of DNA genetic and epigenetics testing, psychological and cognitive analysis, and virtual reality to understand the link between a user's biological makeup and the effect cannabis has on them". 

Unfortunately, the study's findings will not be published until 2023 or 2024, but it is a 5-year study. This is huge for the future of cannabis research as it will give us much-needed information on mental health and cannabis. 

What does this mean? 

Well, we do know that people with a genetic predisposition to certain disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder can react negatively to cannabis. Remember in our last mental health article how some researchers like to claim that cannabis can cause psychotic symptoms when in reality, we know that genetic predisposition determines the risk for an individual? 

 Well, this study is not only trying to track how cannabis can help people but will also talk about if we can predict if someone will react negatively to cannabis. That is right! They want people who might have markers for schizophrenia or bipolar to know if they should or shouldn’t smoke cannabis. For now, talk to your doctor if you have schizophrenia or bipolar in your family before lighting up. Also, we always recommend smoking safely and staying at a safe dosage of cannabis. Too much of a good thing can be harmful :). 

References: 

Forti, M. (2022, September 5). King's college london spearheads the largest ever independent study... King's College London. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/kings-college-london-spearheads-the-largest-ever-independent-study-into-cannabis-use 

Potter, N. (2022, September 8). King's college london begins 6,000-person study on cannabis, Mental Health. High Times. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://hightimes.com/study/kings-college-london-begins-6000-person-study-on-cannabis-mental-health/