Behind the Science: Breaking the Mould: Gender, Hashish, and Substance Use Issues

Interviewee: Dr. Justin Matheson,  | Authors/Editors: Romina Garcia de leon, Janielle Richards (Weblog Co-coordinators)

Revealed: September sixth, 2024

Are you able to briefly clarify your analysis?

My analysis focuses on understanding how intercourse and gender form substance use well being, which encompasses the continuum from preliminary drug use experiences to substance use issues. Particularly, in my present analysis, I’m concentrating on two fundamental areas. The primary is inspecting variations in acute responses to hashish utilizing a human behavioral pharmacology paradigm. On this paradigm, members smoke hashish within the lab, and we observe categorical variations of their responses, comparable to how excessive they really feel and their cognitive and generally driving efficiency. The second focus is on how gender influences trajectories and experiences in hashish use dysfunction therapy, together with the kind and severity of signs skilled by people present process therapy to scale back or cease hashish use. The goal is to raised perceive these trajectories, significantly in cisgender girls and gender minorities, and to enhance prevention and therapy methods for substance use issues, particularly hashish use issues.

How did you get into this analysis?

I sort of stumbled into this discipline when, as a PhD scholar, my supervisor prompt that we discover variations in our preliminary hashish lab examine for a convention presentation. As I reviewed the literature, I turned more and more conscious of how a lot hurt in science has been attributable to andronormativity, the deal with males and male our bodies. Substance use has typically been framed as a “males’s difficulty,” and habit in girls is much less understood, with restricted analysis on habit in gender minorities. As a gender-fluid particular person, I felt it was vital to work in the direction of gendered well being fairness within the habit discipline inside a restorative social justice framework, addressing gaps in understanding how substance use impacts cisgender girls and gender minorities.

How do you outline intercourse and gender in your work?

Initially, my strategy was to make use of a basic categorical distinction mannequin—males versus females. Nevertheless, I’m now shifting in the direction of exploring the underlying elements driving these categorical variations. For instance, I’m within the relationship between gonadal hormone ranges and acute responses to medicine, and the way these relationships fluctuate with the menstrual cycle or menopause. There’s a important lack of empirical proof on how menopause may impression habit threat. Whereas my analysis remains to be grounded in binary classes, I goal to maneuver past this binary to look at related elements that have an effect on all our bodies in another way based mostly on gender. I consider gender as a manner of constructing which means of our bodies and the way societal understandings of gender affect how people are handled. Traditionally, substance use has been extra stigmatized for girls, contributing to underreporting and fewer focus in analysis. Girls with hashish use issues typically face extra interpersonal conflicts, whereas males could expertise extra neurobiological or pharmacological hurt. My analysis seeks to know how gender and biology work together and the way these interactions affect substance use and habit.

Are there any findings you could possibly share with us?

In our human laboratory work, we’ve encountered challenges. For instance, in my preliminary PhD analysis, feminine members smoked much less hashish than males and had decrease THC ranges of their blood than anticipated. Regardless of reporting comparable subjective and cognitive results as males, the distinction in blood THC ranges was important. Nevertheless, subsequent makes an attempt to duplicate this discovering have been inconclusive. We’re exploring how contextual elements (e.g., temper, expectations, prior hashish use historical past) may reasonable the connection between THC publicity and intoxication states. We’re additionally investigating the impression of menstrual cycle section, estrogens, and androgens on hashish use. In our gender-related analysis, which is primarily qualitative, we’ve recognized notable gender narratives. For example, males typically search therapy after struggling to chop again on hashish, whereas girls incessantly cite exterior pressures and disgrace associated to their hashish use. These preliminary findings recommend a necessity for additional exploration of how gender influences treatment-seeking behaviors and boundaries to accessing care.

The place do you hope to see this work in 10 years?

Within the subsequent decade, I hope to safe extra funding for analysis on particular elements associated to substance use. There’s a important hole in understanding how menstrual cycle phases impression hashish use, with just one revealed examine on this space. I goal to fill this hole and discover neuroendocrinological approaches, together with hormone modeling and genetic elements. Moreover, I hope to combine gender extra systematically into laboratory research, transferring past qualitative analysis to develop quantitative measures of gender. For instance, understanding how people who establish as extra female could expertise hashish intoxication in another way might be essential. In the end, I goal to merge analysis on gender and hashish use dysfunction with research on particular person variations in drug responses, to enhance prevention and therapy methods for hashish use issues and different substance use issues.

The place are you able to study extra about Dr. Justin Matheson’s work?

Web site: https://www.justinrmatheson.com/ 

Twitter/X: https://x.com/justinrmatheson