When your research involves illegal drugs, you have to get a bit creative.

That’s why researchers at the University of Colorado have designed and built a mobile laboratory that will allow them to study the effects of dabs — doses of high-potency, concentrated cannabis — with a three-year, $839,500 grant from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Because CU receives federal funding and marijuana remains illegal under federal law, the researchers in CU’s Institute of Cognitive Science can’t handle cannabis or provide it to study participants. Though voters approved legalized marijuana in 2012, the researchers also can’t be in the same room as their research subjects while they consume cannabis products.

But, in the name of science, the researchers came up with a workaround.

After they interview and brief participants on what the study will entail, the researchers will set a time and a place — typically the participant’s home — to run tests after the person has dabbed.

The study will include 135 people who were already dabbing — no one will be asked to begin dabbing for the sake of the study.

Essentially, the researchers will wait outside in their mobile laboratory, which is a white Dodge Sprinter van that’s been outfitted with scientific instruments, while the person smokes concentrated cannabis inside. Then, the participant will walk outside, hop into the van and undergo a series of tests.

“As a researcher in Colorado, obviously marijuana is very relevant and timely and particularly there’s an interest in these newer or more high-potency products that are now available on the market,” said Cinnamon Bidwell, a CU assistant research professor and the lead investigator for the grant. “There’s a really strong need for research to understand the effects of these high-potency products.”

Co-investigators for the study are Angela Bryan and Kent Hutchison, professors in the CU psychology and neuroscience department.

Bidwell said the dabbing project will be the first to study the effects of high-potency cannabis products on brain and behavioral processes, such as cognition, driving and motor control. Researchers will study varying potencies to see how much THC — the main psychoactive component of cannabis — gets into the bloodstream.

THC levels can be as high as 95 percent in marijuana concentrates, which are often sold as resins or sticky oils.

“We’ll collect data on a range of potencies that people smoke and see what happens to their physiology and their brain responses under the influence of these products,” she said.

The data the CU researchers collect will help inform individual users making decisions about what potency they want to smoke, Bidwell said. The data could also help inform and shape public policy.

“If there’s a potency at which it really tips the scale for acute effects, then policy makers can have that information to make decisions,” she said.

The study will launch in April. After first collecting and analyzing the data, the researchers will then report their findings to the state, the public and the scientific community, Bidwell said.

She said she also sees future uses for the mobile lab her team has developed.

“There’s a range of possibilities,” she said. “We can focus on populations that might use marijuana for medical reasons but don’t have mobility — chronic pain patients or something like that. There are a lot of future applications we can apply it to and hopefully get answers to some questions that we don’t have good data on in terms of the effects on different symptoms or short- and long-term effects on either medical or mental health conditions.”

Earlier this month, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment announced that it will award $2.35 million in grant funding for seven studies, including the dabbing study at CU. The state had already funded $9 million in medical marijuana research.

Other new research projects will study driving impairment among occasional users versus heavy users, how long cannabis stays in breast milk and the correlation between various marijuana products and emergency room visits.

“This research will be invaluable in Colorado and across the country,” said Dr. Larry Wolk, the department’s executive director and chief medical officer, in a statement. “The findings will inform our public education efforts and give people additional information they need to make decisions about marijuana use.”

Sarah Kuta: 303-473-1106, kutas@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/sarahkuta