Sisley, a psychiatrist and former clinical assistant professor at the University of Arizona College of medicine, has been fighting to carry out the study since 2011, when it was first approved by the DEA. Since then, she and her colleagues have been struggling to overcome the federal roadblocks that prevent most cannabis research. In 2014, the University of Arizona terminated her contract after conservative state politicians raised objections over the use of cannabis in her study.

Sisley later teamed up with Ryan Vandrey of Johns Hopkins University and Marcel Bonn-Miller of the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. Bonn-Miller is overseeing the research, while Sisley and Vandrey will carry out the clinical studies in Phoenix and Baltimore respectively.

“Now our challenge will be to find identify 40 veterans in Phoenix and 40 in Baltimore who meet the study’s criteria,” Sisley said.

It’s not as easy as people think though. Participants will need to be military veterans diagnosed with PTSD who are resistant to conventional treatments. They don’t need to be current medical marijuana patients, but those who are will have to abstain for a period of weeks prior to the study, in order to validate the results. “We’ll need to randomize the participants,” Sisley explained, which means half will receive cannabis and half will receive a placebo. “For those who are relying on medical marijuana to currently treat their PTSD, receiving a placebo could be challenging.”

Once enrolled in the study, the subjects will receive either federally-approved medical marijuana or a cannabis placebo. They’ll appear weekly through evaluation, “which means they need to live somewhere near Phoenix or Baltimore,” said Sisley. I’ve heard from a number of veterans who’ve told me they’re willing to move temporarily to be in the study, but they still may not qualify. The inclusion criteria are pretty strict.”

One further obstacle: The researchers aren’t able to speak directly to Veteran’s Administration doctors at the Phoenix VA. Sisley spoke to a group of doctors and staff at the Phoenix veterans hospital in 2013, “and I told them I’d be back when we received final approval for the study.” But in 2014, a scandal over the deaths of up to 40 patients who died while waiting for care at the Phoenix VA resulted in the ouster of VA leaders, from those at the Phoenix hospital up to Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki. Phoenix VA hospital administrators are now skittish about anything with the scent of controversy, so they’ve withdrawn the offer to have Sisley give a follow-up presentation. “Which is a shame,” she said, “because those doctors may know of a number of good candidates for the study.”

Sisley said she and her colleagues hope to establish a toll-free number for interested veterans to inquire about entering the study.

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Duke University is responsible for this game-changer. Researchers headed the best possible scenario in this study: analyzing the cognitive ability, habits, successes and failures of identical twins. Twins give this study its advantage because they come from the same background, upbringing and their body chemistry is the same. The factors weed out much of the uncertainty in comparison to tests done on people with very different genetic make-ups and backgrounds.

According to the study, “The data collected from the identical twins fails to support the implication that marijuana exposure in adolescence causes neurocognitive decline.”

The data gathered from the twin study suggests that teenagers who experience “intellectual stagnation” are the ones who are most likely to develop heavy cannabis use habits later in life. This is mainly due to the boredom factor, where students with high IQ scores end up doing worse because they lack interest in school studies that are geared to their peers with lower Iqs, depriving them of essential intellectual challenge and cognitive stimulation. According to the study, these types of teens are “predisposed to intellectual stagnation in middle school and are on a trajectory for future marijuana use.”

Put differently, teenagers on the lowest and highest ends of the IQ spectrum are almost equally as likely to develop habitual cannabis use in their younger years. The teenagers on the low end of the IQ spectrum develop marijuana dependence due to a lack in brain development, while high IQ spectrum teens get there typically through boredom.

Naturally, the scientific conclusion of this study does not mean that anyone can consume as much cannabis as they want with zero side effects. Despite its various medicinal uses, treatment and applications – cannabis is still a drug on he federal level.

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