• Question: how do you reasearch drugs such as cannibis

    Asked by ed1der to Suzi on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Suzi Gage

      Suzi Gage answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Hi @ed1der
      Thanks for this question. There are a number of different ways to research cannabis.
      Chemists can analyse the different active ingredients in different types of cannabis, so they can compare them.
      Neuroscientists can look at people who are high in a brain scanner and see if their brains perform in a different way.
      Psychologists (if they get enough ethical approval) can get people to smoke cannabis in the lab and then see how they behave.
      And I look at a group of people, and see if those who smoke are different in some way to those who don’t smoke.

      There are probably even more ways that I haven’t thought about here.

      What do you think about that? Do you think some ways would be better than others? Or do you think that a combination of these ways would be good?

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