UK researchers are struggling to recruit Black and Asian participants for a study into the effects of cannabis on the human brain over fears about how the data will be used and distrust of the establishment.
The Guardian reports white people have “come forward in large numbers” offering to get involved in the study, which will examine how the drug may contribute to paranoia and psychosis in some users but not others.
It is hoped the £2.5 million (A$4.76m) project, led by Dr Marta Di Forti and King’s College London, will pave the way for wider medicinal use and make illegal recreational use safer.
However, attempts to recruit Black and Asian users via social media and other channels have been met with suspicion. Despite signing up 2,200 people in the London area over the last 18 months, the ‘Cannabis and Me’ trial team still need hundreds more Black African and Caribbean and Asian people to sign up.
Di Forti said if that remains the case: “We will end up with findings that only represent the white population and they won’t be generalisable to Black British people who therefore won’t be able to benefit from any advances our study leads to.”
Marketing consultant William Gadsby-Smith, who is leading the recruitment drive, said it had been one of the most difficult projects he has undertaken.
“If you don’t trust the police because of years of racist and corrupt practices you lump all of the establishment together and it can be easier to say no than yes,” he said, adding attempts to interest the UK’s leading Black newspaper The Voice have so far failed.
By combining genetic data with socioeconomic information and psychological analysis, the researchers hope to tease out links between a user’s biological makeup, their social circumstances, and the effect cannabis has on them. They will also look at how people consume the drug and which strains they use.
But Unjust, a London-based advocacy organisation that addresses racism in the legal system, said it was also declining to help.
Founding director Katrina Ffrench said the project’s focus on cannabis and psychosis could result in “policymakers ignoring the harms of prohibition and furthering the criminalisation of Black males”.
Four out of five people being treated for cannabis-induced psychosis at Di Forti’s clinic are from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds.
