Research grade marijuana supplied by the National Institute on Drug Abuse is genetically divergent from commercially availableCannabis

Abstract

AbstractPublic comfort withCannabis(marijuana and hemp) has recently increased, resulting in previously strictCannabisregulations now allowing hemp cultivation, medical use, and in some states, recreational consumption. There is a growing interest in the potential medical benefits of the various chemical constituents produced by theCannabisplant. Currently, the University of Mississippi, funded through the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH/NIDA), is the sole Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) licensed facility to cultivateCannabisfor research purposes. Hence, most federally funded research where participants consumeCannabisfor medicinal purposes relies on NIDA-supplied product. Previous research found that cannabinoid levels in research grade marijuana supplied by NIDA did not align with commercially availableCannabisfrom Colorado, Washington and California. Given NIDA chemotypes were misaligned with commercialCannabis, we sought to investigate where NIDA’s research grade marijuana falls on the genetic spectrum ofCannabisgroups. NIDA research grade marijuana was found to genetically group with Hemp samples along with a small subset of commercial drug-typeCannabis. A majority of commercially available drug-typeCannabiswas genetically very distinct from NIDA samples. These results suggest that subjects consuming NIDA research grade marijuana may experience different effects than average consumers.