Still, Questions Remain

The researchers with COSMIC and CU Boulder’s other cannabis-related research projects including CHROME (Cancer and Health: Research on Marijuana Edibles) and PRISM (Pain Research: Innovative Strategies with Marijuana) have, thus far, done a great job at sharing their motivations and plans with the public and potential research participants.

The questions that I’m left with mostly revolve around interpretation of results and what will be done with the resulting observations. Throughout the cannabis community, it is mostly understood that the study’s three points of interest, dosage, efficacy, and side effects, are definitively individual. Only experience and essentially self-testing can determine these for each consumer.

Does the study expect some standardization of experience to be developed? One that could be translated into medical and other usage recommendations? Isn’t the idea that standardization is possible reductionist and generalistic to a fault? Possibly. But this is not uncommon in western medicine wherein care models are not altogether catered to the individual but rather for the masses. Standardization of practice, methodology, and treatment protocols are required by western medical culture if not by law.

I will say, standardization itself is not necessarily an enemy of the cannabis user. If you have listened to The Mary Jane Experience’s podcast interviews with Skip of MarQaha Boulder and Chris from The Magical Butter Maker, you’ll remember they both stressed the benefits relating to the ability to produce a product with the same potency, etc. many times over. Especially in the case of a therapeutic cannabis user, for example, someone consuming cannabis to help control pain associated with chemotherapy treatments.

A cancer patient is most likely fatigued, experiencing some associated pain, and will find it best to know exactly how much of what product to take without much thought or effort to get the desired pain relief. It’s clear that standardization on the individual level can be desirable. I do think researchers should ask if potentially blanketed standardization of dosage, etc. could be harmful to the cannabis community as we know it.

I am cautiously optimistic regarding standardization as long as standardization doesn’t mean minimization of access. In clinical practice, finding the most appropriate prescription for any given patient is in the best interest of that patient. The prescription of any federally regulated drug is done so with care and consideration on an individual basis.

Practitioners want to avoid giving an inappropriate drug, an ineffective drug, a drug that could adversely interact with another medication the patient is taking, a drug the patient could have an allergic reaction to, etc. In their attempt to address a vast array of potential symptoms and uses from PTSD-related depression and anxiety to Cancer-related pain, I hope cannabis researchers can translate their results into as many possible recommendations for therapies, dosages, strains, methods, and more.

Any aggressive standardization leading to minimizing access would be a disservice to the community. As COSMIC researchers acknowledged of cannabis consumption, and unlike most prescription drugs, one person’s preferred “effect” could be another’s perceived “side effect.” Therefore, any clinical standardization of cannabinoids perhaps should not look the same as the considerations acknowledged for the standardization of other prescription drugs.

As long as these nuances remain a consideration throughout future cannabis research as it relates to clinical applications, restrictions may be kept to a minimum and potential therapeutic recommendations made as broad as the individual experience.

Results and Beyond

After the study size is large enough to produce statistically significant results, COSMIC researchers say they will be shared on the research study’s webpage: https://www.colorado.edu/changelab/cosmic They hope the public, not only research participants, will compare their own experiences and personal knowledge with the study’s average answers. We, at The Mary Jane Experience, are looking forward to the scientific community and the cannabis community becoming mutually beneficial partners in research like this!