TY - JOUR
T1 - THE ACUTE EFFECTS OF CANNABIS WITH AND WITHOUT CANNABIDIOL IN ADULTS AND ADOLESCENTS
T2 - A RANDOMISED, DOUBLE-BLIND, PLACEBO-CONTROLLED, CROSSOVER EXPERIMENT
AU - Lawn, Will
AU - Trinci, Katie
AU - Mokrysz, Claire
AU - Borissova, Anna
AU - Ofori, Shelan
AU - Petrilli, Kat
AU - Bloomfield, Michael
AU - Haniff, Zarah R
AU - Hall, Daniel
AU - Fernandez-Vinson, Natalia
AU - Wang, Simiao
AU - Englund, Amir
AU - Chesney, Edward
AU - Wall, Matthew B
AU - Freeman, Tom P
AU - Curran, H Valerie
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank all the participants who took part, Sharinjeet Dhiman for helping to coordinate the study and all the graduate students who were involved in data collection. We also thank Storz and Bickel, Germany, for providing the Volcano Medic.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Addiction published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society for the Study of Addiction.
PY - 2023/7
Y1 - 2023/7
N2 - Background and Aims: Long-term harms of cannabis may be exacerbated in adolescence, but little is known about the acute effects of cannabis in adolescents. We aimed to (i) compare the acute effects of cannabis in adolescent and adult cannabis users and (ii) determine if cannabidiol (CBD) acutely modulates the effects of delta-9-tetrahydocannabinol (THC). Design: Randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover experiment. The experiment was registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04851392). Setting: Laboratory in London, United Kingdom. Participants: Twenty-four adolescents (12 women, 16- to 17-year-olds) and 24 adults (12 women, 26- to 29-year-olds) who used cannabis 0.5–3 days/week and were matched on cannabis use frequency (mean = 1.5 days/week). Intervention: We administered three weight-adjusted vaporised cannabis flower preparations: ‘THC’ (8 mg THC for 75 kg person); ‘THC + CBD’ (8 mg THC and 24 mg CBD for 75 kg person); and ‘PLA’ (matched placebo). Measurements: Primary outcomes were (i) subjective ‘feel drug effect’; (ii) verbal episodic memory (delayed prose recall); and (iii) psychotomimetic effect (Psychotomimetic States Inventory). Findings: Compared with ‘PLA’, ‘THC’ and ‘THC + CBD’ significantly (P < 0.001) increased ‘feel drug effect’ (mean difference [MD] = 6.3, 95% CI = 5.3–7.2; MD = 6.8, 95% CI = 6.0–7.7), impaired verbal episodic memory (MD = –2.7, 95% CI = −4.1 to −1.4; MD = −2.9, 95% CI = −4.1 to −1.7) and increased psychotomimetic effects (MD = 7.8, 95% CI = 2.8–12.7; MD = 10.8, 95% CI = 6.2–15.4). There was no evidence that adolescents differed from adults in their responses to cannabis (interaction P ≥ 0.4). Bayesian analyses supported equivalent effects of cannabis in adolescents and adults (Bayes factor [BF
01] >3). There was no evidence that CBD significantly modulated the acute effects of THC. Conclusions: Adolescent cannabis users are neither more resilient nor more vulnerable than adult cannabis users to the acute psychotomimetic, verbal memory-impairing or subjective effects of cannabis. Furthermore, in adolescents and adults, vaporised cannabidiol does not mitigate the acute harms caused by delta-9-tetrahydocannabinol.
AB - Background and Aims: Long-term harms of cannabis may be exacerbated in adolescence, but little is known about the acute effects of cannabis in adolescents. We aimed to (i) compare the acute effects of cannabis in adolescent and adult cannabis users and (ii) determine if cannabidiol (CBD) acutely modulates the effects of delta-9-tetrahydocannabinol (THC). Design: Randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover experiment. The experiment was registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04851392). Setting: Laboratory in London, United Kingdom. Participants: Twenty-four adolescents (12 women, 16- to 17-year-olds) and 24 adults (12 women, 26- to 29-year-olds) who used cannabis 0.5–3 days/week and were matched on cannabis use frequency (mean = 1.5 days/week). Intervention: We administered three weight-adjusted vaporised cannabis flower preparations: ‘THC’ (8 mg THC for 75 kg person); ‘THC + CBD’ (8 mg THC and 24 mg CBD for 75 kg person); and ‘PLA’ (matched placebo). Measurements: Primary outcomes were (i) subjective ‘feel drug effect’; (ii) verbal episodic memory (delayed prose recall); and (iii) psychotomimetic effect (Psychotomimetic States Inventory). Findings: Compared with ‘PLA’, ‘THC’ and ‘THC + CBD’ significantly (P < 0.001) increased ‘feel drug effect’ (mean difference [MD] = 6.3, 95% CI = 5.3–7.2; MD = 6.8, 95% CI = 6.0–7.7), impaired verbal episodic memory (MD = –2.7, 95% CI = −4.1 to −1.4; MD = −2.9, 95% CI = −4.1 to −1.7) and increased psychotomimetic effects (MD = 7.8, 95% CI = 2.8–12.7; MD = 10.8, 95% CI = 6.2–15.4). There was no evidence that adolescents differed from adults in their responses to cannabis (interaction P ≥ 0.4). Bayesian analyses supported equivalent effects of cannabis in adolescents and adults (Bayes factor [BF
01] >3). There was no evidence that CBD significantly modulated the acute effects of THC. Conclusions: Adolescent cannabis users are neither more resilient nor more vulnerable than adult cannabis users to the acute psychotomimetic, verbal memory-impairing or subjective effects of cannabis. Furthermore, in adolescents and adults, vaporised cannabidiol does not mitigate the acute harms caused by delta-9-tetrahydocannabinol.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85148940477&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/add.16154
DO - 10.1111/add.16154
M3 - Article
C2 - 36750134
SN - 0965-2140
VL - 118
SP - 1282
EP - 1294
JO - Addiction
JF - Addiction
IS - 7
ER -