Decriminalization of Marijuana Opens Doors for Some Scientists

August 3, 2022

(Nature) – Here’s an odd job in science: on a regular basis, Natasha Mason, a psychopharmacology postdoctoral researcher at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, offers cannabis to her study participants. They get the drug for free — but there’s a catch. They have to puff their vapourizers while lying in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine. In most of the world, marijuana remains illegal for both recreational and medical purposes, but in this laboratory, which also studies the acute impacts of psychedelic mushrooms and LSD, cannabis is a basic material for science. (Read More)