Cannabis, Youth, Safety, and Effectiveness Research Group

Principal Investigator

  • Ryan S Sultan, MD

    Profile Headshot
    • Research Scientist, Columbia University Irving Medical Center
    • Director, Mental Health Informatics

The world’s approach to cannabis is rapidly evolving, with ever increasing medicalization, legalization, and commercialization.  Leveraging our backgrounds in psychiatry, epidemiology, public health, and chemistry, the Cannabis, Youth, Safety, and Effectiveness Research Group focuses on public health implications of the contemporary cannabis environment, with an emphasis on youth, mental health, and evidence-informed clinical and public health strategies. 

Areas of Expertise 

  • Adolescent substance use- led by child & adolescent psychiatrists with training in adolescent addiction, and prior research on contemporary cannabis and vaping, our team bridges a developmentally informed clinical perspective to understanding the impacts of cannabis on public health  
  • Large data sets- our team has experience utilizing large nationally representative data sets, such as Monitoring the Future (MTF), the National Study on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), and Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) to understand trends in substance use patterns  
  • Chemical analysis- close interdisciplinary collaboration between psychiatry and organic chemistry colleagues enables use of state-of-the-art chemical analysis techniques to address public mental health concerns 

Current Projects 

  • Cannabis Access and Safety in New York (CASNY)- the lab has been using a variety of research approaches to investiage the impacts of recent legalization of Cannabis in New York State, with a focus on comparing the practices of state-licensed retailers and unlicensed retailers that emerged following legalization.  These studies include a secret shopper study focused on youth access and youth-oriented business practices, labeling of licensed and unlicensed vape and flower products, and chemical analysis verifying COAs and comparing chemical safety parameters of licensed and unlicensed products 
  • Clinician-oriented considerations of contemporary cannabis use- the lab works to understand what today’s pediatricians and mental health clinicians need to know to evaluate and treat people using today’s cannabis.  

Grants 

  • We are grateful for generous financial support from the Koudijs family