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UCLA, November 13, 2019 – PRESS RELEASE – Do females and males respond differently to cannabis? What
factors contribute to these differences? Dr. Ziva Cooper, research director at
the UCLA Cannabis Research Initiative
is about to find out.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a $3.5
million grant to Dr. Cooper to conduct a five-year study to evaluate the pain-relieving
properties of cannabis and its cannabinoids.

This grant will fund the first clinical trial at the Cannabis
Research Initiative, which was founded in 2017 as part of the Jane
and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior where Cooper
became the first research director in January of this year. The Initiative was
one of the first university programs in the world dedicated to the study of
cannabis.

“This is an ideal first project as it probes significant public
health questions related to the potential medicinal and adverse effects of
cannabis and cannabinoids, a central mission of the Initiative,” said Cooper,
who is also a professor-in-residence of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences
at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

Additionally, the study will examine the addictive properties of
cannabis compounds and look at whether males and females experience the effects
of the drug differently.

“Evidence
from animal studies show that females are more sensitive to the pain-relieving
benefits of THC, the primary component of cannabis. But they are also more
sensitive to the negative effects,” Cooper said in the statement released by
UCLA. “At a time when rates of medicinal cannabis use are rapidly increasing
among women, the study’s findings will help researchers better
understand how men and women respond differently to both the potential
therapeutic and negative effects of cannabis.”

The study will also explore whether hormones and
endocannabinoids, the body’s own cannabinoid system, play a role in these
differences.