Study suggests frequency and severity of reactions to cannabis

The authors note that previous research has explored different chronic adverse reactions to cannabis use, whereas there is less research on acute adverse effects.Dr. Carrie Cuttler, an assistant professor of psychology at Washington State University, Pullman, and one of the paper’s authors, notes, “There’s been surprisingly little research on the prevalence or frequency of various adverse reactions to cannabis and almost no research trying to predict who is more likely to experience these types of adverse reactions.”“With the legalization of cannabis in Washington and 10 other states, we thought it would be important to document some of this information so that more novice users would have a better sense of what types of adverse reactions they may experience if they use cannabis.”The researchers recruited 999 participants, all of whom were undergraduate students at the Washington State University’s Department of Psychology and had used cannabis.72.7% of the participants were women, and 72.7% were white. If they answered yes, they then rated how distressing the adverse reaction was on a five-point scale of 0–4, with 0 being not at all distressing and 4 being severely distressing.The researchers also asked a subset of relevant participants (370 in total) how frequently they experienced acute adverse reactions when consuming cannabis — that is, what percentage of the times they consumed cannabis did they experience the adverse reaction.The authors also determined whether the participants experienced signs of cannabis use disorder, which the National Institute on Drug Abuse define as the continued use of cannabis despite clinically significant impairment.They also gauged:More than half of the respondents reported the most prevalent acute adverse reactions to cannabis use; these were coughing fits, anxiety, and paranoia.