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If you have smoked five joints a week, every week, for the past year, then science needs you.

A research collaboration between Alberta Health Services, the University of Alberta and MacEwan University is studying 120 healthy Edmontonians aged between 18 and 35 to understand the short and long-term effects of cannabis use and its residual effects on cognition, motor skills and sensory skills.

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It will also look at how people with mental illness are affected by cannabis.

Principal investigator Scot Purdon, with the neuropsychology department at Alberta Hospital Edmonton, admits it will be a small sample group, but calls it a good starting point to help fill the void in scientific literature surrounding the use of cannabis.

“There’s literature out there, but it’s highly ambiguous, with as many positive results as negative,” he said. “We don’t have long-term data; it’s just a big gap.”

There has been no shortage of patients who use a minimum of one gram of marijuana a week willing to spend several hours with researchers to answer questions about their substance use history and undertake short cognitive tests such as remembering words and drawings.