Health claims about US cannabis products with Tim Mackey and Doug Roehler

In this episode, Dr Elle Wadsworth talks to Dr Tim Mackey and Dr Doug Roehler. Tim is a professor in the Global Health Program at UC San Diego and the CEO and co-founder of S-3 Research, and Doug is the Cannabis Research Unit lead in the Department of Policy and Research for California’s Department of Cannabis Control. The interview covers Tim and Doug’s research article exploring the health benefit claims of cannabis products on online marketplaces in the United States.

• Why exploring health benefit claims on cannabis products was an important topic to investigate [01:20]
• What are cannabis-derived products? [03:07]
• What are the online marketplaces ‘Leafly’ and ‘Weedmaps’? [03:35]
• Examples of health benefit claims [05:00]
• The main findings of the study [07:33]
• The cannabis regulatory environment in the US [10:20]
• The differences in health claims between different types of cannabis products [12:20]
• The methodology used in the study that brought together data scientists and public health researchers [14:11]
• The health claims that surprised Tim and Doug [18:31]

About Elle Wadsworth: Elle is an academic fellow with the Society for the Study of Addiction. She is based at the University of Bath with the Addiction and Mental Health Group and her research interests include drug policy, cannabis legalisation, and public health. She has a BSc in Chemistry, an MSc in Addiction Studies, and a PhD in Public Health.

About Tim Ken Mackey: Tim is a Professor in the Global Health Program at UC San Diego and the CEO and co-founder of S-3 Research, a public health data science company originally created from a Challenge.gov award. He is also the Director of the Global Health Policy and Data Institute and the Editor-in-Chief of JMIR Infodemiology. He has co-authored over 270 manuscripts on topics including global health, technology, data science, substance use disorder, and health policy. Dr Mackey is an entrepreneur and scientist working on technology innovation to address public health challenges.

About Douglas Roehler: Doug leads the Cannabis Research Unit in the Department of Policy and Research for California’s Department of Cannabis Control. Previously, he was a health scientist and epidemiologist in the Division of Overdose Prevention at the CDC, where he primarily served in the CDC’s Cannabis Strategy Unit. He has published extensively on cannabis topics in peer-reviewed journals and governmental reports, appeared on national podcasts, and represented the CDC in the national media. He has published widely on several other topics, including injury prevention, drug overdose and substance use, youth prevention, syndromic surveillance, traffic crashes, and youth violence.

Declarations of Interest: Tim Mackey is the CEO and co-founder of the company S-3 Research and holds equity/ownership in the company. S-3 Research is a small business that has received funding through government contracts and grants for professional and technology services including on topics related to substance use disorder.

Original article: Exploratory analysis of United States-based cannabis product health benefit claims on online marketplaces https://doi.org/10.1111/add.70177

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