A new research program is underway that will take user feedback on cannabis treatment outcomes to better inform which strain of the plant or administration method is best for various medical needs. Angie Calhoun, CEO of the Mississippi Cannabis Patients Alliance, says patients can easily spend thousands of dollars trying to find which version of cannabis is best suited for them.
“When they go into that dispensary, there will be less trial in the future, and they’re actually helping other patients in the future, to be able to walk in and say ‘Okay, I have this condition, and I’m going to be able to treat it with this medicine,’” says Calhoun.
The research will be collected through the Releaf app, and data will be made available to researchers at the University of Mississippi as well as the dispensary that sold the product. Patients will be able to anonymously log what they purchased and how it affected things like sleep, mood and pain similar to a digital diary. Larry Walker is the Interim Director of the National Center for Cannabis Research and Education at the University of Mississippi. He says they have been conducting federal research on cannabis for more than 50 years, but this would be a major step toward researching patient outcomes.
“Understanding benefits that might be derived from it, what doses, what roots of administration, what conditions are they beneficial for,” says Walker. “And hopefully into full-scale clinical studies with the [University of Mississippi Medical Center], collaborating with them to study specific patient populations, specific doses and roots of administration.”
The Releaf app is already available on various app stores, and researchers say it will take time to gather this data as more dispensaries and forms of cannabis come online in Mississippi.
