BACKGROUND The marijuana plant cannabis is known to have therapeutic effects, including improvement of inflammatory processes. However, no report of patients using cannabis for Crohn's disease (CD) was ever published. OBJECTIVES To describe the effects of cannabis use in patients suffering from CD. METHODS In this retrospective observational study we examined disease activity, use of medica...

The consumption of cannabis has been linked to impairments in human learning and memory, as well as aspects of executive functioning. Cannabis-related impairments in learning and memory in chronic cannabis users, it has been argued, are caused by the effects of cannabis on hippocampal functioning. The current study involved two experiments. Experiment 1 compared 35 current users of cannabis and...

UNLABELLED Opioids are commonly used to treat patients with chronic pain (CP), though there is little evidence that they are effective for long term CP treatment. Previous studies reported strong associations between passage of medical cannabis laws and decrease in opioid overdose statewide. Our aim was to examine whether using medical cannabis for CP changed individual patterns of opioid use. ...

Background Because cannabis use is associated with social, physical and psychological problems, it is important to know what causes some individuals to initiate cannabis use and a subset of those to become problematic users. Previous twin studies found evidence for both genetic and environmental influences on vulnerability, but due to considerable variation in the results it is difficult to dra...

Opioids are commonly used to treat patients with chronic pain (CP), though there is little evidence that they are effective for long term CP treatment. Previous studies reported strong associations between passage of medical cannabis laws and decrease in opioid overdose statewide. Our aim was to examine whether using medical cannabis for CP changed individual patterns of opioid use. Using an on...

There is a growing need to provide treatment for cannabis users, yet engaging and maintaining this population in treatment is particularly difficult. Although past research has focused on the importance of therapeutic alliance on drug treatment outcomes, this is the first study to examine the dimensions of therapeutic alliance for cannabis users compared with users of alcohol or other drugs in ...

BACKGROUND There are inconsistencies in findings as to whether cannabis use has a negative impact on clinical outcomes for people with established psychosis. Effects may be more evident on patients with recent onset psychosis. AIM To investigate the relationship between cannabis use and clinical outcome, including whether change in cannabis use affects psychotic symptoms, affective symptoms, ...

AIM To model the impact of rising rates of cannabis use on the incidence and prevalence of psychosis under four hypotheses about the relationship between cannabis use and psychosis. METHODS The study modelled the effects on the prevalence of schizophrenia over the lifespan of cannabis in eight birth cohorts: 1940-1944, 1945-1949, 1950-1954, 1955-1959, 1960-1964, 1965-1969, 1970-1974, 1975-197...

BACKGROUND Cannabis users are highly likely to also be tobacco cigarette smokers and a proportion of this comorbidity is attributable to shared genetic influences. Three large meta-analyses of genomewide association studies (GWAS) of tobacco smoking have identified multiple genomewide significant (p<5×10(-8)) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). We examine whether these SNPs are associated w...

Background: The political climate around Cannabis as a medicine is rapidly changing. Legislators are adopting policies regarding appropriate medical applications, while the paucity of research may make policy decisions around conditions for which Cannabis is an effective medicine difficult. Methods: An anonymous online survey was developed to query medical Cannabis users about the conditions th...