A team of researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences has received a $2.7 million federal grant to conduct the first comprehensive study of the dangers posed by synthetic marijuana products.
The grant from the National Institutes of Health National Institute on Drug Abuse will enable seven researchers to determine the toxicity of man-made cannabinoids and inform policymakers as they consider regulating the products, which are intended to mimic the effects of marijuana.
“Synthetic cannabinoid products such as K2 and Spice are deceptively marketed as safe and legal alternatives to marijuana, but admissions to emergency rooms and calls to poison control centers suggest that they are certainly not safe,” said Paul Prather, the study’s principal investigator and professor in the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology. “Users of these products are experiencing psychosis, seizures, heart attacks and even death.”
Since 2015, there have been 83 calls for synthetic cannabinoid exposures to the Arkansas Poison & Drug Information Center at UAMS. Synthetic cannabinoids are chemicals often sprayed on plants that have been cut up to look like natural marijuana and are sold as powders, tablets and capsules.
Over the next five years, the UAMS team will explore why the synthetic compounds are more toxic than marijuana.
“Our goal is to provide the public and scientific community definitive information that these compounds are not an alternate form of marijuana that’s safe,” Prather said. “This would give federal and state agencies grounds for further regulating these compounds.”
In addition, he said, the team’s findings could help lead to antidotes for people with synthetic cannabinoid toxicity.
The $2.7 million grant builds on the work of a one-year 2011 pilot study that was conducted by largely the same team and was funded by the Translational Research Institute.
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