VANCOUVER—The first professorship in Canada aimed specifically at researching the role cannabis can play in addressing the overdose crisis is being created at the University of British Columbia.

Evan Wood, professor and Canada Research Chair at UBC, said the two-year position will help produce concrete statistics on the use of cannabis in treating opioid addiction — a field of research Wood believes could provide data desperately needed to help lives.

“We’re in the midst of a horrid opioid crisis,” he told StarMetro by phone. “We need evidence-based approaches.”

Wood said studies of this kind have yet to find a firm foothold in traditional funding structures.

This is largely due to federally-imposed red-tape around the use of cannabis in scientific research — a consequence of decades of cannabis being treated as a dangerous drug.

“Cannabis prohibition has just been a tremendous failure,” he said. “We need to chart a new course.”

The position is being created in partnership with B.C.’s Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions, the B.C. Centre on Substance Use and Canopy Growth Corp. — Canada’s largest cannabis company and the first in North America to be publicly traded.

Canopy has announced it will donate $2.5 million to establish the Canopy Growth Professorship in Cannabis Science and the Canopy Growth Cannabis Science Endowment Fund to support ongoing research on pot.

The Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions, meanwhile, contributed $500,000 to the project — a move Wood praised, calling it bold and forward-thinking.

Judy Darcy, B.C.’s minister for mental health and addictions, released a statement Wednesday saying her ministry is committed to working “across all sectors to find new, evidence-based ways to save more lives from opioid overdose and help more people find a pathway to hope and healing.”

Hilary Black, director of patient education and advocacy for Canopy Growth, told StarMetro she views Canopy’s donation as an extension of the public service she began in the cannabis sector 20 years ago, as the founder of Canada’s first Compassion Club.

Since its inception, she said, the B.C. Compassion Club has been involved in funding health care for people who might otherwise fall through the cracks.

“To me, the cannabis industry has always been about using profits to give back, and to take care of your community,” Black said.

“I'm doing the same work, but now on a much bigger scale, working with Canopy Growth ... And I get to use their resources (for) social responsibility in the communities that we're operating in.”

Black said the $2.5 million is an “arm’s-length” grant, meaning Canopy will not be involved in dictating staffing or structure for the research initiative.

Wood, the UBC professor, said all partners entered into the agreement with this very thing in mind.

“It was very important to them and us that this be a philanthropic gift and not a strings-attached kind of thing,” he said, adding this distance between funding and programming is a way to guarantee the independence of whatever results the research produced.

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“Once the cheque is cashed, that’s it. This is a philanthropic gift.”

With legalization on the horizon and money pouring into the cannabis industry, Wood said, the timing is right for a partnership of this kind.

He also emphasized there is an abundance of anecdotal data from local efforts such as Sarah Blyth’s work in harm reduction clinics on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside using cannabis to treat pain — a common driver behind substance use — which suggest a research initiative of this kind could bear fruit.

Studies from the United States likewise support Wood’s belief cannabis could be a tool to help treat the overdose crisis.

A 2017 study in the Harm Reduction Journal found “U.S. states with medical cannabis laws had a 24.8 per cent lower mean annual opioid overdose mortality rate compared to states without medical cannabis laws.”

A 2018 study published in Journal of the American Medical Association, Internal Medicine on the association between medical cannabis laws and opioid prescription found states with medical cannabis dispensaries saw a 14.4 per cent reduction in use of prescription opioids.

“Medical cannabis laws are associated with significant reductions in opioid prescribing,” the report reads, adding the finding “was particularly strong in states that permit dispensaries.”

Wood said he is under no illusion cannabis is some kind of “panacea” in the fight against addiction.

But he did feel a research partnership between government, the scientific community and a cannabis producer bodes well for the future of progressive thinking around drug treatment.

“I think it’s a win-win for everybody,” he said.

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