Eighteen months after joining a study on using marijuana to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, Johns Hopkins University has pulled out without enrolling any veterans, the latest setback for the long-awaited research.
A Johns Hopkins spokeswoman said the university’s goals no longer were aligned with those of the administrator of the study, the Santa Cruz-based Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). A spokesman for MAPS said the dispute was over federal drug policy, and whether to openly challenge federal rules that say medical cannabis research must rely on marijuana grown by the federal National Institute on Drug Abuse.
One of the lead researchers from MAPS recently did just that, in a PBS report that said the government-grown marijuana provided for the study was poor quality and contaminated with mold. Hopkins quit the study two days later.
