A NEW SURVEY SHEDS LIGHT ON ‘VULNERABLE’ CANNABIS USERS Written by Maya Bell Published on May 12, 2020 Category: Alumna, Secondary Faculty, Research The international study led by the University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies aims to help guide public policy about marijuana use amid the coronavirus pandemic. The health warnings against smoking or vaping cannabis while the novel coronavirus continues its global assault are clear: Because COVID-19 attacks the lungs, cannabis users should quit inhaling cannabis. Yet the preliminary results of an international survey of both medicinal and recreational cannabis users suggest that a majority are continuing the risky behavior. Only 16 percent of more than 2,000 self-identified cannabis users who have answered the anonymous questionnaire so far said they have changed how they consume
cannabis. Of those, only a third said they had curtailed inhaling it. “Whether they are recreational or medical users, all cannabis users are a vulnerable population right now for different reasons. But the one thing they have in common is that the majority continue to smoke or vape,’’ said Denise Vidot, assistant professor and an expert on the health effects of cannabis at the University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies, who is leading a study based on the survey. That’s concerning, Vidot said, not only because of growing evidence that shows smokers who contract COVID-19 have more severe symptoms and complications than those who don’t smoke. But many recreational cannabis smokers are also known to share their product—which is a sure-fire way to spread the disease that has killed more than 288,000 people globally.
“In mouth-to-mouth contact, you’re literally sharing saliva, especially if you’re passing an electronic vaporizing device,” Vidot said. At last count, the 2,000-plus self-identified cannabis users who voluntarily answered questions about how the pandemic has changed their access to cannabis—and their frequency, dose, and method of ingesting the substance—were from at least 46 countries. The University’s Hemispheric University Consortium, which advances research and education throughout the Americas, has been particularly helpful in disseminating the electronic survey across the hemisphere, but Vidot and fellow researchers at the University of Texas, State University of New York, and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill hope to collect information from approximately 10,000 respondents who are 18 or older from every country in the world. Their long-term goal is to help guide future public policy and education
94
