WEBVTT

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- THC is delta nine tetrahydrocannabinol,

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which is the principal active
constituent of cannabis.

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Without THC, there wouldn't be
any psychoactive effects of cannabis,

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and the effects are dose related,
as in the more THC in the product,

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the greater the effects,
both good and bad.

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The content of THC in cannabis
from the 1960s was about 4%,

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and then in 2016, it got up to about 16%,

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and now it's 35% THC content.

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Beyond cannabis itself,
there are a staggering array of products,

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including concentrates
that have a THC content of 95%.

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So when people think about cannabis

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and studies done on
cannabis from the ‘60s and ’70s,

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where cannabis was 20 times weaker

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than some of the products
that are currently available,

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they may not understand the risks
of the currently available products.

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The mission of the Yale Center for the
Science of Cannabis and Cannabinoids

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is to provide support for
the highest quality research

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so that we can disseminate that to the public,

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to clinicians, to parents,
to health policy experts.

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The other is to support the development

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of a new breed of young investigators
who’d spend the next

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20 years of their careers
studying the science of cannabis to

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to move the field forward.

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The methods and the approaches
that are being used are very diverse.

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They go from molecular neuroscience

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all the way to asking someone with schizophrenia,

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“why do you use cannabis and what effect is cannabis having?”

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and everything in between.

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We find that heavy cannabis users have about

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a 15% reduction in the number
of synapses in the hippocampus,

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which is that part of the brain that's
really critical for learning and memory,

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and now we are looking at whether

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abstinence from cannabis in those people
who are heavy cannabis users

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results in some recovery
of the number of synapses.

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We also supporting a study
that will use a technique called

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ecological momentary assessment,
where we will have

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people with schizophrenia
who will be asked to report in a diary

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how they are feeling at that moment and
whether they've recently used cannabis.

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And that would allow
us in a naturalistic setting,

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understand the effects of cannabis

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on the everyday lives of someone
with a serious mental illness.

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So these are really important approaches
that are useful on their own,

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but when they are combined,
they are synergistic,

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and one of the great things about Yale
is that we have such a breadth and depth

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of research expertise,

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technologies and methodologies

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that is really remarkable.

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The goal is to provide

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the highest quality evidence
in either direction.

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If it if there is good evidence
that cannabis, for example, is beneficial

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for certain medical conditions,

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and that's definitive,
irrefutable evidence, great.

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If there is evidence
that exposure to cannabis

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is associated with detrimental
effects down the line,

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that would be important for people to know.

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At the end of the day, our purpose is
in generating the highest quality information,

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and then what people would do with that
information, it's really up to them.