Cannabis Conversations at King's

Cannabis is the third most commonly used controlled substance in the world, after alcohol and nicotine. Over the last 50 years the long-term harms of cannabis use have been under greater scrutiny – particularly the harms of cannabis in teenagers and, most recently, for those who are using high-strength cannabis. These areas of research are even more important as conversations about cannabis legalisation continue. Meanwhile, the medical benefits of cannabis are also now being more thoroughly investigated. In 2018, we began the Medical Research Council-funded ‘CannTeen’ study to investigate how cannabis impacts the brain, cognitive function and psychological wellbeing in teenagers and adults.

Our event in May was an opportunity to be able to communicate our findings back to study participants in a meaningful way, which was a key aim throughout our research.

Pictured: Dr Will Lawn presenting his research.

Disseminating research through activities and talks

Cannabis Conversations at King’s was an evening of fun and informative talks and activities, creating opportunities for attendees to have informal conversations with researchers and learn more about cannabis research. The event, funded by a small grant from the King’s Centre for Doctoral Studies, put attendees and researchers on an equal footing, allowing them to freely discuss the positives and negatives of cannabis use in an evidence-based, balanced way.

We wanted to encourage open conversations about people’s own experiences of cannabis consumption: Why do they use cannabis? How much cannabis are they consuming when they do, and are their experiences positive or negative?

On one of our stands, people could roll cannabidiol-only cannabis joints, weigh the typical quantity of cannabis they consumed, and find out how their use compares to the average. This demonstrated to guests how we measured naturalistic cannabis use accurately in the lab, and informed people if they were using larger amounts than the average (which could help people reflect upon their use patterns).

Attendees were encouraged to anonymously post their personal experiences of cannabis consumption – both positive and negative - on a bright green, cardboard cannabis leaf. They also reported motives for cannabis use and discussed these in relation to a new ‘cannabis motive scale’ that is being developed by researchers at the University of Liverpool.

Halfway through the event, we split the attendees into groups of five-10 people and facilitated patient-and public involvement (PPI) conversations, encouraging them to discuss their thoughts about our research and make suggestions about what they’d like to see more of in the future.

Throughout the evening, we hosted a series of lightning (5-minute) talks from eight leading cannabis scientists. These focused on our large ‘CannTeen’ project about the impact of adolescent cannabis use, controlled cannabis administration experiments, and the benefits of medical cannabis using data from Drug Science’s T21 study.

The talks were followed by a researcher ‘carousel’ and poster session, where guests spoke to researchers in a relaxed atmosphere. Finally, we ran a panel discussion where four researchers answered questions on harm reduction, cannabis policy, and the different strengths and drawbacks of randomised control trials versus observational studies when scrutinising cannabis as a medicine.

Reflections on the event

Over the course of the evening, we learnt that people wanted more carefully controlled research into the medical benefits of cannabis for specific medical conditions, research into the minor cannabinoids and other chemicals found in cannabis (e.g. terpenes); more information about accessing drug services, and further research into the long-term consequences of cannabis on cognitive function. We also received very helpful advice on what we should include in future educational videos about cannabis.

We most definitely broke out of the academic echo chamber and had truly meaningful conversations. Many attendees told me it was the most enjoyable and accessible drug science event they had attended.

You can learn more about the research we spoke about here:

1. Adolescents are more vulnerable to the development of cannabis use disorder (i.e. problematic use or addiction) than adults.
2. Adolescents feel similar effects of cannabis compared to adults when getting stoned and cannabidiol does not change the experience.
3. When people get high, cannabis alters the functional connectivity of the brain.
4. Chronic use of higher-strength cannabis is associated with worse addiction and some mental health outcomes.
5. The impacts cannabis has on appetite.
6. Use of medical cannabis is associated with improvements in general health and quality of life in people with various medical conditions.