New study finds worrisome statistics around medical cannabis users operating vehicles

More than half of people who take medical cannabis for chronic pain say they've driven under the influence of cannabis within two hours of using it, at least once in the last six months, according to a new study in the journal Drug & Alcohol Dependence.

Lead author Erin E. Bonar, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and a practicing clinical psychologist at the U-M Addiction Treatment Services, surveyed adults in Michigan who were seeking medical cannabis recertification or a new certification for chronic pain in 2014 and 2015.

Opioids fueled a doubling of suicides and overdoses in the U.S.

Suicides and drug overdoses kill American adults at twice the rate today as they did just 17 years ago, and opioids are a key contributor to that rise, according to a new review and analysis by a U-M team led by Amy Bohnert, Ph.D., M.H.S., associate professor of psychiatry and Mark Ilgen, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry.

Reversing this deadly double trend will take investment in programs that have been proven to prevent and treat opioid addiction, the authors of the study say in a new article in the New England Journal of Medicine.