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Acute and residual effects of
marijuana in humans.
Fant RV, Heishman SJ, Bunker EB, Pickworth WB
National Institute on Drug Abuse, Intramural Research
Program, Addiction Research Center, Baltimore, MD 21224,
USA.
Marijuana continues to be the most commonly abused
illicit drug in the United States. Because many people
abuse marijuana during the evening and on weekends and
then go to work or school the next day, more research is
needed on the residual effects of marijuana. The current
study sought to examine both acute and residual
subjective. physiologic, and performance effects of
smoking a single marijuana cigarette. Ten healthy male
volunteers who reported recent use of marijuana resided
on a residential research ward. On three separate days,
subjects smoked one NIDA marijuana cigarette containing
either 0%, 1.8%, or 3.6% delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol
(THC) according to a paced puffing procedure.
Subjective, physiologic, and performance measures were
collected prior to smoking, five times following smoking
on that day, and three times on the following morning.
Subjects reported robust subjective effects following
both active doses of marijuana, which returned to
baseline levels within 3.5 h. Heart rate increased and
the pupillary light reflex decreased following active
dose administration with return to baseline on that day.
A new finding was that marijuana smoking acutely
produced decrements in smooth pursuit eye tracking.
Although robust acute effects of marijuana were found on
subjective and physiological measures, and on smooth
pursuit eye tracking performance, no effects were
evident the day following administration, indicating
that the residual effects of smoking a single marijuana
cigarette are minimal.
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