"What will 2019 bring for science and medicine? We asked the experts"
It has been a tumultuous year for science and medicine, and also for the business and politics of both. Changes in federal laws regarding medical cannabinoids will substantially expand scientific research in 2019 in that arena. Scientific evidence is essential to guide the growing use of “medical marijuana” products, which are expected to increase and become even more mainstream in 2019 (as more companies will get into the cannabis market targeting consumer goods and health care). There will, however, be more demands by the public to have better guidance about how to use such cannabis compounds to alleviate their particular symptoms/disease. Physicians will also demand more knowledge in order to guide and treat their patients. As such, there will be more pressure for preclinical and clinical research that has unfortunately lagged behind the growing medical marijuana craze.
— Yasmin Hurd, PhD, Professor, Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Pharmacology, Systems Therapeutics, Chair, Ward-Coleman Translational Neuroscience, Director, The Addiction Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
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