Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1470128
cannabissciencetech.com june 2022 | Psychedelics: New Frontiers in Alternative Medicine 29 research / feature also makes it challenging to conduct re- search and be taken seriously. Q: Do you want to share any experiences of how you got to where you are? A: Dr. Vidot: Sure, I can definitely talk about that. I'm the eldest of seven children. A true Puerto Rican here. I'm so close to my father. And my father was diagnosed with multiple myeloma cancer, common variable immunodefi- ciency disorder, and also scleroderma. Those are three incurable diseases that are chronic, and the mortality rate is not to be discussed with smiles. Right? So, seeing my father go through all of that, the opioid fog, the chemo, all these pharmaceuticals getting thrown at him, every time he had a negative side effect, "Oh, don't worry. There's a pill for that." It wasn't until he started consuming cannabis. Cannabis is what helped him. When I was in high school, I saw that. I also saw the stigma related to that. So, in short, watching my father go through that as well as watching some other so- cial injustices happen in my neighbor- hood regarding cannabis really inspired me to say, "What can I do?" I have al- ways been very passionate about sci- ence, even at a young age. So rath- er than be a physician, who basically just practices what the researchers tell you, I decided I wanted to do research and prove to the world that there is evi- dence that suggests that cannabis is not a gateway drug. Cannabis is not going to do all these things that Reefer Mad- ness and all these other stigmas that propaganda has shown us. Q: Do you have any advice for other researchers who might want to conduct similar studies? A: Dr. Vidot: Don't quit. Immedi- ately, that's my first thing. Don't quit. I've found that the more pressure and more resistance that I get, that means I'm onto something. So, I would encourage any other researcher, especially in the cannabis space—I'm still new to psychedelics, so it's a little irresponsible for me to communicate about that—but especially for the cannabis space, stay strong. If you are at a university or an area that cannabis research is not taking place, look for those who are. At the University of Miami, as I men- tioned, 11 years ago no one else was doing cannabis research. So, what did I do? I was following the Dr. Meg Haney's of the world at Columbia University. I was just looking at their research, trying to email them, and asking if I could volunteer in their labs. I have a very open-door policy in my laboratory, for example. So, if you're interested in getting your hands wet in some cannabis or psychedelic research, feel free to email me. But it just takes emailing someone because, especially I've noticed in the cannabis and psych- edelics space, we're open, especially if you show passion or that you're excit- ed for the right reason and not just try- ing to make millions. Let's be honest, you already know there's a sector that's in it for the money. But overall, stay strong and don't quit. It's worth it. Q: Do you want to share a little bit about your talk from the Fall 2021 Cannabis Science Conference on the brain, heart, and gut axis? A: Dr. Vidot: Yes, as a matter of fact, that study is still going on. But the results are very similar, though so that's good news. But at the 2021 conference, I spoke about cannabis and the impact on the brain, heart, and gut axis. I showed how different types of cannabinoids can have different outcomes on multiple organs. I also summarized how every single one of us has an endocannabinoid system. And that system is why cannabis can influence our mental and physical health. Just as a little teaser here, I want to mention that one of my next endeavors or what I'm working on right now is trying to understand how psilocybin in particular engages with the endocannabinoid system. Some people are like, "Oh, no, Denise, you know, Dr. V, you're crazy. That's cannabis." Okay—you heard it here first. That's what I'm looking at. Q: What is next for your research with cannabis and psychedelics? Do you want to share any other future work you're planning? A: Dr. Vidot: Right now, we're also planning next stages for things. A lot of our work, especially in the psychedelic space includes a lot of pilot studies, so we're trying to get that evidence to prove that we should do a larger study. So, right now, we're getting ready to relaunch our psychedelic study on COVID, but this time, asking those questions about the dosing, asking questions about what their pre- and post-integration practices were, if any. We're definitely looking deeper into the long-term impact of psyche- delics and during COVID, because as we know, the situation, when you have COVID is one thing, but what happens four months after COVID, when you're still having some mental fog? What happens a year after COVID? What happens five years after COVID? We don't know yet, but our laboratory is setting up an infrastructure up so that we can study that and be able to answer those questions, so that if another pan- demic comes at least we'll know. We'll have that data of what happened last time, because as of this point, we don't have data on psychedelics and past pan- demics, past illnesses of this caliber.