Part I of an interview with Dr. Ryan Vandrey and Dr. Johannes Thrul from Johns Hopkins University
The study’s co-directors share insights into this landmark study, explain its significance, and how DRUID is participating. With over 10,000 study participants, the project is the largest of its kind and seeks to provide a foundation to address the extensive gap in knowledge about the variety of cannabis products and their effect on medical and non-medical cannabis users.
PART I
Q. What’s the Cannabis Science Lab at Johns Hopkins known for and what types of studies does it do?
Vandrey: The Cannabis Science Lab is under the umbrella of the Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit, which has been in operation since the mid-1960s. Cannabis research has been done here throughout that history. I arrived here in 2005 and we've been doing cannabis-related work at an increasing scope and size since then.
The aim of the lab is to conduct rigorous scientific experiments to address public health and community health needs related to cannabis and cannabis regulation. Much of what we do are basic science experiments in the human laboratory. We're trying to answer real simple questions like “What's the difference between THC and CBD? What's the difference if you smoke it, vape it, eat it, or rub it on your skin?” We also answer complex questions about particular products and formulations as therapeutic agents for particular health conditions, conducting clinical trials.
Q. What is the size of the lab, in terms of the number of studies that you've done or the number of researchers?
Vandrey: We've done dozens of studies over the past 20 years. Currently, there are eight faculty that are full-time in the Cannabis Science Lab plus multiple adjunct faculty, such as my colleague here, Johannes Thrul, whose primary appointment is in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Staff-wise, we're about 40 people strong, and, at any given time, we're probably running anywhere from 10 to 15 experiments of one type or another. You can find more details about the lab at https://www.jhcannabissciencelab.com/.
Q. Broadly speaking, why is cannabis research so important right now?
Vandrey: The reason it's important is because cannabis has been legalized and it's the first example of a drug that moved from an illicit drug substance class into approval at the regional level, for both therapeutic and non-therapeutic purposes, in the absence of the traditional clinical trials that would normally be done to determine safety and efficacy for any particular health condition. There are 10 lifetimes worth of research questions that need to be done quickly so that we can figure out how people should use, or when they shouldn’t use, these products. What products are safe? How are the products different? Who should use what and for what reason both on the therapeutic and non-therapeutic side?
Q. How did you first learn about DRUID and when did you start using DRUID with some of your studies?
Vandrey: Dr. Mike Milburn contacted me when he was really first getting the company started. He and I talked at length about why he was developing DRUID. It happened right when Massachusetts legalized cannabis and he was worried about road safety and workplace safety. “What are we going to do when all these people start using cannabis and they're driving around or operating forklifts, and we can't tell if they're impaired or not?” It was born from that. And at that time we had recently received a couple grants to study the acute effects of cannabis in our laboratory. And so he asked us to become part of the development of the app and help validate it, with respect to whether or not it was sensitive to the acute effects of THC exposure. And we did validate that in a couple different studies.
Q. What, specifically, does DRUID add to your study data?
Vandrey: The way I contextualize DRUID is that it's an arrow in a quiver of things that that people can utilize to help determine whether someone's acutely impaired or intoxicated as a result of cannabis exposure. A lot of the standard field sobriety tests that people might use in a workplace or roadside setting have been shown not to be sensitive to cannabis because, in most cases, they were developed specifically to detect alcohol related impairment, not THC-related impairment. Now that cannabis is legalized for non-medicinal use in most of the US, DRUID is a tool that can help determine if somebody's unfit for duty or unfit to be driving a vehicle on the road, which is important from a public health and workplace safety perspective.
Q. How did you, Johannes, come to join the lab and what are your main focus areas?
Thrul: I'm an Associate Professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Department of Mental Health, and have pretty much my entire career focused on substance use and addiction research, with a specific emphasis on digital and mobile health methods. I give people apps, like DRUID, that people can use out there in the real world. For example, some of my studies are tracking cannabis use behavior and the impact that cannabis has on mood, anxiety levels, stress levels, on the way people sleep, all of those types of things. This is different than the tightly controlled studies run by Ryan where you bring people into the lab and know exactly what you give them and at what time point.
Q. Why is your type of research important now?
Thrul: Like Ryan mentioned, the legal landscape has shifted rapidly. There are hundreds, if not thousands of research questions that we need to answer to help inform cannabis regulation and clinical decision making. And also, for the first time now, we see that daily cannabis use has overtaken daily alcohol use in the US. So there is a need for timely data to contribute to this discussion, both on the health effects of cannabis and in how people are using different products and the impact that those products have.
Read Part II - Click HERE
About the Directors and the Study
Ryan Vandrey, PhD
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Johns Hopkins University Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit (BPRU)
Director of the Cannabis Science Lab (CSL)
Johannes Thrul, PhD
Associate Professor of Mental Health
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
NIH RePORTER: Project Number: 1UM1DA059000-01
Due to changes in cannabis policy, most Americans now have access to an array of retail cannabis products. An estimated 5.5 million Americans are registered with state-regulated medical cannabis programs and the therapeutic use of federally legal hemp (e.g. CBD) products is widespread. Despite most states having legalized medicinal cannabis use, little is known about the characteristics of these patients, the cannabis products they use, or the patient-level health impact of their medicinal cannabis use. Filling these gaps in knowledge remains an urgent public health need.
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