Federal agency awards $3 million to study marijuana in place of opioids

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The National Institutes of Health is eager to allow greater marijuana exploration

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) want is anxious to boost the amount of research that is conducted on cannabis. It has announced that it has awarded $3 million in grants to various organizations, primarily to lead studies that can better determine the role of cannabis in fighting the opioid epidemic.

Nine grants have been issued in order to identify alternatives to opioids and to determine the impact of cannabis consumption in treating pain. The director of NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, Helene Langevin, said in a press release, “The treatment of chronic pain has relied heavily on opioids, despite their potential for addiction and overdose and the fact that they often don’t work well when used on a long-term basis. There’s an urgent need for more effective and safer options.”

The research will involves tests specific to certain cannabinoids, such as cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), as well as terpenes and other cannabinoids found in the plant. So far, scientists have discovered over 110 different cannabinoids and more than 120 terpenes, and NIH wants to better understand them all. NIH Deputy Director David Shurtleff adds, “THC may help relieve pain, but its value as an analgesic is limited by its psychoactive effects and abuse potential. These new projects will investigate substances from cannabis that don’t have THC’s disadvantages, looking at their basic biological activity and their potential mechanisms of action as pain relievers.”

Among the recipients of the grants are the New York University School of Medicine; Boston Children’s Hospital; University of California, San Francisco; Research Triangle Institute, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina; University of Texas, Austin; University of Utah, Salt Lake City; Emory University, Atlanta; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Temple University, Philadelphia.