Researchers at Florida Gulf Coast University have launched a statewide study to evaluate how anxiety levels may go up and down among medical marijuana users.
The aim is to enroll 1,000 Floridians who are certified medical marijuana users, according to Nathan Pipitone, the principal researcher at FGCU who works in the university’s Department of Psychology.
Patients will report daily for 45 days their anxiety level before using cannabis products and how it changes after use, he said.
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“We are not asking them to change how much they use,” he said.
There have been numerous peer-reviewed studies that establish medical marijuana use can address anxiety but what is not known is how much cannabis is needed to reduce anxiety, he said.
The goal is to begin working toward that understanding with this study, he said.
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“This is preliminary groundwork,” he said, adding that he recognizes the shortcomings of the study because it does not involve a controlled group of study participants not using medical marijuana.
“Hopefully it will open the door to allow more rigorous research,” he said.
The goal is to see if there is any typical amount that patients use to alleviate anxiety, he said. The preference for the study is smokable marijuana.
About one-third of Americans will suffer from a significant anxiety disorder at some point in their lives, Martha Rosenthal, a biologist at FGCU and a study collaborator, said in a news release.
“This study will expand our knowledge on the effects of medical cannabis on symptoms of anxiety, patient patterns of use, and the correlation of medical cannabis with other anxiolytic drugs and practices,” she said.
How many users are there in Florida?
Florida voters in 2016 overwhelmingly approved an amendment to the state constitution to legalize medical marijuana for patients with certain debilitating conditions that include cancer, chronic pain, post -traumatic stress disorder, Parkinson’s disease and more.
Patients get the marijuana under guidance from state-certified physicians and receive a qualified patient identification card.
Nearly 717,000 Florida residents have qualified to be medical marijuana users in Florida and 2,300 physicians are registered to diagnose patients who could benefit from it, according to the Office of Medical Marijuana Use, which operates within the state Department of Health. There are 428 dispensaries statewide.
Who is the study serving?
The FGCU study is the first in ongoing collaboration between the university, app technology firm MoreBetter, which does business as Releaf App, and CannaMD, one of Florida’s largest networks of medical marijuana physicians, according to a news release.
“Identifying specific (cannabinoid) ratios that work best for anxiety is a critical area of study with immediate real-world applications for a large percentage of the patients we see every day,” Jessica Walters, chief medical researcher for CannaMD, said in a news release.
To qualify, participants must be at least 18 and certified medical marijuana patients who use it for anxiety, but they can also use medical marijuana for pain management or other conditions, Pipitone said.
The participants will be reminded by text message every day to record for 45 days through the Releaf App to answer standardized anxiety-related questions, Pipitone said.
MoreBetter technologies are widely used by researchers, healthcare professionals, and cannabis product manufacturers to collect data on the performance of cannabis and CBD products, as reported by cannabis patients and consumers.
“Given the increased anxiety and stress that has been reported over the past few years, this is a timely study,” Tyler Dautrich, chief operating officer of MoreBetter, the company behind the Releaf App, said in a news release.
 “Working with groups like FGCU and CannaMD enables us to collect localized real-world data outcomes, which will ultimately help improve the experience for registered cannabis patients in Florida,” Dautrich said.
People who enroll in the study will be eligible to receive an Amazon gift card of $250, which will be awarded to participants randomly so not all will receive it, Pipitone said.
For more information, interested participants should visit https://btstudi.es/q/flanxiety1/
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