VANCOUVER, Wash. - A Southwest Washington psychology professor has received federal stimulus money to study marijuana and pain management.

WSU Vancouver Professor Michael Morgan qualified to receive $148,438 for his two-year study, which aims to determine whether the use of marijuana along with other anti-pain medications such as morphine provides better pain relief than either drug alone.

The grant from the National Institutes of Health is part of the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the economic stimulus package enacted by Congress and signed by the president in February.

"This research is innovative in the field," Morgan said in a news release. "Currently there are no other projects that are studying this chemical relationship using these parameters."

His project was picked because of "its potential to stimulate the economy and create or retain jobs within the community" as well as its likelihood of making scientific progress in two years, school officials said in a news release.

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Zipline Conservative

February 12, 2010

Your Confiscated Money at Work

“Some of the close to seven billion dollars in projects in Stimulus Checkup create few jobs; benefit private interests over the public good; or make improvements where they are not necessary,” the report says. “Some send money to companies facing fraud charges. Others take millions of dollars to do work local officials and experts admit are not needed or will not help.” Tax Dollars

Buffalo Residents Paid to Keep Daily Journal of Malt Liquor and Marijuana Use ($389,357)
Researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo will receive nearly $390,000 to study young adults who drink malt liquor and smoke marijuana. Malt liquor consumption is an understudied topic, according to the researchers‘ application, making it an obvious choice for economic stimulus funding. The study will reportedly pay 100 Buffalo-area residents $45 each to record their daily malt liquor drinking and marijuana smoking usage through an automated phone hotline.

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MIAMI, FL

FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Grant: $648,737 - National Institutes of Health - Aug. 11, 2009

Award Description: 'Brief Intervention for Marijuana Use among Latino Youth' is a two-year research project designed to develop and test a school-based, brief intervention for marijuana using, Hispanic/Latino 10th & 11th graders. Clinical trials support the effectiveness of brief intervention with adult and older adolescent marijuana users, but these studies have been limited by insufficient ethnic/racial diversity of samples, lack of attention to non-treatment–seeking populations, no direct examination of putative mechanisms of change, and failure to account for possible reactivity-to-assessment effects. 10th & 11th grade marijuana users, more than their younger or older counterparts, are at especially high risk for developing problems with marijuana use. Hispanic/Latino adolescents report the highest prevalence of early onset marijuana use, which makes them particularly susceptible to the development of marijuana use problems. The primary goal of the study is to conduct a randomized clinical trial evaluating a school-based motivational interviewing intervention targeting marijuana use among Latino 10th & 11th graders. Participants (n = 240) will be randomly assigned to two treatment conditions: (1) brief advice and a personalized feedback report alone (BA+PFR) or (2) brief advice, a personalized feedback report, and motivational interviewing (BA+PFR+MI). Participants will be evaluated at study entry, and at 3- and 6-month follow-ups. At the 6-month follow-up assessment, 15% of participants will be randomly selected for urinalysis in order to examine the correspondence between self-report and biochemical indices of substance use. We hypothesize adolescents assigned to motivational interviewing will demonstrate significantly greater reductions in marijuana use and marijuana-related negative consequences than adolescents assigned to brief advice plus personalized feedback. Additional aims are to examine (a) mechanisms of change associated with intervention response, (b) how gender, nativity, generational status, and language preference might moderate intervention response. We believe our proposed study is both significant and innovative, and represents an important next step in the development of effective, brief, and school-based interventions for adolescent marijuana users.

Project Description: Our 2-year study will focus on examining the efficacy of brief motivational intervention for reducing marijuana use and marijuana-related negative consequences among Hispanic adolescent marijuana users (n=240). Study participants will be recruited from the Miami-Dade public schools. The study has four specific aims: Aim #1. Evaluate the efficacy of a motivational interviewing intervention for Hispanic/Latino, marijuana using, public school youth. We hypothesize adolescents assigned to motivational interviewing will demonstrate significantly greater reductions in marijuana use and marijuana-related negative consequences than adolescents assigned to brief advice. Aim #2. Examine mechanisms of change (i.e., mediators) associated with response to our motivational interviewing intervention. We hypothesize changes in these variables will predict participants’ response to the motivational interviewing. Aim #3. Explore gender, nativity, generational status, and language preference as moderators of intervention response. This exploratory aim represents a preliminary evaluation of the gender and cultural invariance of our motivational interviewing intervention for adolescent marijuana users.

Jobs Summary: This 0.66 FTE consists of two new hires. One is a Research Interventionist and one is a Research Assistant. This also includes the retention of one Professor. (Total jobs reported: 1)

Project Status: Less Than 50% Completed

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~{NOW-I'm Not The Best At All This Researching Thing Or Blogging But Just From What I Have Found It's Like We're Telling Children Go Smoke The Stuff & This Is All Happening Under Obama!!~I Put A Lot Of Blame On Him So Call Me Crazy!!~