The CIPHERS team will co-host a symposium about cannabis use, health outcomes, and policy with the Duke University Center on Addiction and Behavior Change. The event, Altered States of Cannabis Regulation: Informing Policy with Science, will be held on April 17th on Duke University’s campus. Co-sponsors for the event are the Duke Center on Addiction & Behavior Change at the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, and the Duke CIPHERS project (funded by the John Templeton Foundation).
Researchers from across the country will join us to share their work spanning neuroscience, medicine, and epigenetics. Ed Levin, PhD, co-director of the Center on Addiction and Behavior Change and CIPHERS Component 2 Project Leader will kick off the event with introductions. Then, Thomas Marcotte, PhD, from UC-San Diego, will discuss the promises and challenges of using cannabis as medicine.
Following Dr. Marcotte, Henrietta Szutorisz, PhD, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, will introduce the epigenetic concept of imprinting and effects on brain and behavior. Ed Levin will then present his CIPHERS work on long-term behavioral effects in the offspring of male rats that were exposed to THC.
Charles Easley IV, PhD, University of Georgia, will discuss his research on the impacts of paternal preconception exposures on the health of offspring in nonhuman primates.
Susan Murphy, PhD, Principal Investigator of the CIPHERS project and Component 3 Project Leader, will wrap up the morning session with her work exploring cannabinoids and the sperm epigenome.
After lunch, the symposium will resume with three more presentations. Madalyn Meier, PhD, Arizona State University, will talk about the associations between persistent cannabis use and cognitive and psychosocial functioning. Sherika Hill, PhD, Duke School of Medicine, will present a developmental perspective of adverse outcomes of cannabis use in the US both pre- and post-legalization among a high-risk, rural subpopulation.
Our final presentation of the day will shift our thinking from the biomedical and psychological perspectives of cannabis use to what a framework for national legalization of cannabis may look like. RAND Corporation’s Beau Kilmer, PhD, will lead this talk.
Find out more about the event here. And be sure to follow along on social media on April 17th for photos and key takeaways from the symposium!
