Current Studies

Funded by the National Institutes of Health (1R21DA048067) the long-range goal of this work is to improve our understanding of the consequences of medical marijuana use in later life. A study that examines older adults pre-exposure to medical marijuana and systematically tracks medical marijuana initiation, dosage, and psychomotor functioning is needed.

Thus, the current study will test medical marijuana use as the exposure variable in adults age 50 and older and simulated driving performance (i.e. errors in response time, attention, and executive functioning tasks that predict on-road performance) as the primary outcome.

Medical marijuana use is increasing among adults 50 and older. Both the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institute on Aging (NIA) have identified the need to understand how habitual use of medical marijuana affects psychomotor functioning in real world tasks such as driving. The current proposal will address this question by examining medical marijuana use in the context of driving performance among adults 50 and older.

An examination of change in presenting symptomatology from baseline to six-months in patients with qualifying medical conditions in the state of Florida.  This is a secondary-data analysis project leveraging CC-PBRN data resources.

The long-range goal of this work is to provide needed data to improve our understanding of the effect of medical marijuana use on patient reported outcomes among those with a qualifying medical condition in the state of Florida. Further, this work will assist in the development of best practices guidelines for patient who use medical marijuana as an alternative treatment.

With the emergence of increasing legalization of medical cannabis across the United States, researchers have been invested in distinguishing between cannabis use for medical and for non-medical purposes, prevalence of use for each of these motivations, and potentially differentiating characteristics of medical and non-medical cannabis users.

The goals of this project are to examine cannabis use patterns among medical and recreational users aged 18 to 85 and identify key components needed for a standard cannabis assessment tool.