Cannabis Marijuana National Institute on Drug Abuse NIDA

The Duke researchers’ work focuses on repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, or rTMS, a noninvasive therapy that uses magnetic pulses to activate or suppress specific parts of the brain. Food and Drug Administration for treatment of depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, and tobacco addiction. These medicines do not make a person feel “high.” Only a doctor can give these medicines. Scientists are looking at ways that chemicals in cannabis can help with health problems, but it will take years of research. Being addicted, which is also called having a substance use disorder, means that a person continues to use a drug even when it is causing problems for them at work, school, or at home.

Are cannabis products getting stronger?

Cannabis use in the past year and past month remained at historically high levels for both adult age groups in 2023. Among adults 19 to 30 years old, approximately 42% reported cannabis use in the past year, 29% in the past month, and 10% daily use (use on 20 or more occasions in the past 30 days). While these 2023 estimates are not statistically different from those of 2022, they do reflect five- and 10-year increases for both age groups. She’s now leading a study at Duke using an accelerated rTMS protocol, compressing a six- to eight-week treatment course into a single week. Participants’ brain activity is measured before and after treatment while cannabis use is tracked through mobile surveys that capture changes in their drug use and cravings in daily life. While most studies focused on boosting self-control, she found while working with alcohol users and cocaine users that quieting the brain’s reward system could lessen cravings — particularly in patients with strong responses to drug-related triggers, known as high drug cue reactivity.

• Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy(link is external) prioritizing enforcement against certain unauthorized flavored cartridge-based products.
• With chronic cannabis use, natural appetite fades and users may eat only when under the drug’s influence.
• The NIDA Drug Supply Program is administered by the Division of Therapeutics and Medical Consequences (DTMC).
• In this analysis, researchers found that changing even stringent limits on annual substance use benefits had only a small absolute effect on overall insurance costs under managed care, even though a large percentage of substance use patients were affected.

Director’s Reports

This definition opens the way for broad strategies and common approaches to all drug addiction. While people with mental health disorders and related symptoms are more likely to use cannabis,51 many factors that influence mental health—such as genes, trauma, and stress—also influence how likely someone is to use drugs, including cannabis. Given cannabis marijuana national institute on drug abuse nida these related genetic and environmental vulnerabilities, additional data from prospective, longitudinal research (studies that measure participants’ health over long periods of time) are needed to determine whether, to what extent, and for whom cannabis may cause or contribute to poor mental health outcomes.

NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DRUG ABUSE: DISSEMINATION OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE TO IMPROVE ADOLESCENT HEALTH

NIDA-supported research leads to FDA approval of nalmefene nasal spray(link is external), which can be used to treat fentanyl overdose. The National Drug Early Warning System (NDEWS), a network of 18 sentinel sites that monitors patterns of drug use across the nation, incorporates real-time surveillance and harnesses its network to collect data on substance use-related consequences of COVID-19. Biobot Analytics(link is external), another SBIR grantee, pioneers the commercial application of wastewater technology to monitor the presence of drugs in communities.

Biographical Sketch of NIDA Director, Nora D. Volkow, M.D.

• Around nine-in-ten U.S. adults say either that marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use (54%) or that it should be legal for medical use only (33%).
• Treatment options can include behavioral therapies to better understand triggers and teach alternative coping skills, medications to treat uncomfortable symptoms, or interventions to address underlying or co-occurring conditions like anxiety or depression.
• NIDA-supported research identifies brain processes that increase the rewarding effects of cocaine the more a person uses it, a change thought to play an important role in the development of cocaine craving and addiction.
• This includes detecting and responding to emerging substance use trends, understanding how drugs work in the brain and body, identifying social determinants of substance use risk and SUDs, and developing and testing new approaches to prevention, treatment, and recovery.
• Consequently, the report enumerates recommendations for research that should be conducted by federal, state, and tribal agencies to provide greater clarity and inform policy, including several domains within the purview of the NIH.
• 2020 — A study partially funded by NIDA finds why some people with HIV are able to maintain suppressed viral loads for years without ART.

That’s unrealistic today, with commercialized cannabis,” says Laura Schmidt, PhD, MSW, MPH, a professor of health policy studies. After joining the faculty at Columbia University in 2018, Kearney-Ramos shifted her focus to CUD. That year, she authored a paper reviewing the state of rTMS research in people who use cannabis and proposed future directions for rTMS treatment development. Dr. Volkow has published almost a thousand peer-reviewed articles, written 113 book chapters, manuscripts and articles, co-edited “Neuroscience in the 21st Century” and edited four books on neuroscience and brain imaging for mental and substance use disorders.

I. EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES FOR CLINICIANS/HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS

This may be particularly true for White Non-Hispanic patients, who, on average, may have more access to legal cannabis markets post-legalization (Harris and Martin 2021). Around the same time, she received a NIDA-funded career development award to study an accelerated rTMS treatment protocol targeting the brain’s self-control network in people with CUD. 108-7, the Departments of Labor, HHS, and Education FY 2003 Appropriations Act, continued prior prohibitions on funding of sterile needle and syringe exchange programs and on legalization of Schedule I controlled substances. This study follows more than 11,800 children from ages 9-10 through adolescence into young adulthood. By integrating neuroimaging with genetics, neuropsychological, behavioral, and other health assessments, the study aims to shed light on how substance use and other experiences during adolescence affect brain development and later health outcomes such as drug use and addiction. Researchers analyze the health care costs of substance use benefits and find substance use treatment is cost-effective.

Research supported by NIDA identifies a way for scientists to estimate how likely an opioid is to cause tolerance and have the potential to cause addiction. The scale, called relative activity versus endocytosis or RAVE measure, calculates how effective different opioids are regulating the signaling of the opioid receptors they activate in the brain. It assesses the opioid’s ability to trigger cells to remove opioid receptors from the cell membrane, a process called internalization. NIDA researchers demonstrate the effectiveness of sublingual buprenorphine for the treatment of opioid use disorder.

For all marijuana’s therapeutic benefits, medical researchers are also sounding alarms about frequent use of its high-octane derivatives—especially among teens. And as supercharged pot goes mainstream, it’s dispelling the myth of a nonaddictive drug. Hallucinogen use in the past year continued a five-year steep incline for both adult groups, reaching 9% for adults 19 to 30 and 4% for adults 35 to 50 in 2023. Types of hallucinogens reported by participants included LSD, mescaline, peyote, shrooms or psilocybin, and PCP.

But what scientists are learning about weed’s health effects might come as a surprise. THC potency has increased in recent decades, from about 4% THC in 1995 to about 16% in 2022, with some online dispensary products hitting far higher levels. It affects memory, learning, and sleep, and increases the risk of stroke and heart disease. The “munchies” are a common cultural punchline, but for Duke University School of Medicine clinical neuroscientist Tonisha Kearney-Ramos, PhD, they signal a deeper issue. With chronic cannabis use, natural appetite fades and users may eat only when under the drug’s influence.

This has important implications for treating people with substance use disorder and the side effects of long-term substance use. 1998 — As part of a team including the Pasteur Institute, Karolinska Institute and Glaxo Wellcome Geneva, a NIDA-supported researcher identifies a brain receptor activated by nicotine use. 1992 — NIDA-supported research isolates anandamide, a chemical in the brain that interacts with the active ingredient in cannabis, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). In addition, the researchers discover that anandamide also plays a role in other brain activities, such as pain relief, sedation, memory, and cognition. 1975 — NIDA supports the first nationally representative survey of adolescent and young adult substance use and attitudes. The ongoing Monitoring the Future (MTF) Survey tracks trends in past-year, past-month, and lifetime substance use among 12th graders.