The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a $3.5 million grant for Ziva Cooper, the research director of the UCLA Cannabis Research Initiative, to conduct a five-year study to evaluate the pain-relieving effects of cannabis and cannabinoids.
This is the first clinical study for the Cannabis Research Initiative, which was founded in 2017 as part of the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. Says Cooper, who is also a professor in residence of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, “This is an ideal first project as it probes significant public health questions related to the potential medicinal and adverse effects of cannabis and cannabinoids, a central mission of the Initiative.”
The study is also going to look at the addictive properties of cannabis and whether it affects men and women differently. "Evidence from animal studies show that females are more sensitive to the pain-relieving benefits of THC, the primary component of cannabis. But they are also more sensitive to the negative effects," Cooper said.
With medicinal cannabis being legal in more states, more women are beginning to use the drug. This study will also study if hormones play a role in the differences between men and women users of medicinal cannabis.