John Redfield
Pronouns: he/him
Research Mentor(s): Daniel Kruger
Co-Presenter:
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Institute for Social Research / Other
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Oral5
Session: Session 2 – 11am – 11:50am
Room: Breakout Room 5
Authors:
Presenter: 4
Abstract
Medical marijuana is gaining ground with each election cycle; at this point over half of all states in America have cannabis available for medicinal purposes. Despite these growing trends, the public health community has been slow to approve of this novel treatment. This study dives into the curricula of accredited public health universities across the country to determine whether or not they offer courses related to medical cannabis. We also analyzed how this fact compares to availability of other courses on drugs, such as alcohol, opiates and tobacco. In order to achieve this goal, the course guides of dozens of universities were downloaded, as well as the syllabi of relevant courses. Each school was coded with a value based on how they fit into these criteria, and then this information was also coupled with the political standing of the university’s state government. The study concluded by an overwhelming margin that there is extremely limited information available from a public health perspective on medical marijuana in the nation’s accredited universities. This does not seem to have any relation to the legality of medical cannabis in each university’s residing state. On the other hand, courses regarding other types of substances (both legal and illicit) were more prevalent, though still not to the extent that we hypothesized. Finally, there did not appear to be a strong relation of each state’s general political leaning to the availability of medical cannabis courses. This new information can be important when considering the ever-increasing presence of medical cannabis as a novel treatment. This study can serve as inspiration for more schools to implement classes that outline the benefits and risks of this treatment. This study may also point to a stigma regarding medical cannabis that was pushed by the United States government in prior decades, that has yet to depart from academia- many of whom were raised in this era.
Biomedical Sciences, Social Sciences
