Canadian Medical Cannabis Clinical Trials Network (CMCN)

Although one in eight Canadian adults use medical cannabis (MC), the vast majority of indications for MC lack high-quality randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to support its use. This evidence gap means clinicians cannot properly advise their patients whether and how to use MC and patients must rely on low-quality information (e.g., cannabis marketing) which may result in higher-risk use (e.g., smoking cannabis instead of lower-risk routes) and adverse effects. As a result, numerous patient and provider organizations have called for more research on the safety and effectiveness of MC. The lack of research on MC is due, in part, to the challenges of conducting MC research: ethical and regulatory barriers, challenges obtaining standardized MC products that reflect the products patients use, challenges blinding and dispensing MC, and lack of clinical experience. As the first major industrialized country to legalize cannabis, Canada is poised to be a leader in MC RCTs – provided a strong infrastructure can be established to overcome these barriers.
The vision for the Canadian Medical Cannabis Trials Network (CMCN) is to bring together Canadian clinicians and scientists with a track record of conducting RCTs of MC across a range of indications to leverage shared knowledge, resources, and infrastructure in order to vastly expand capacity to conduct high-quality MC RCTs across Canada.
The CMCN will be co-led by four PIs from three Universities: Drs. Jason Busse and James MacKillop from McMaster University, Dr. Lauren Kelly from the University of Manitoba, and Dr. Hance Clarke from the University Health Network and the University of Toronto. Beyond the leadership group a total of 40 faculty members, representing 15 universities and hospitals from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, providing a truly fulsome pan-Canadian RCT platform. Administration and coordination support for the network will be supplied by research staff from McMaster University and the University Health Network.
Collaborating with the Canadian Consortium for the Investigation of Cannabinoids, the Canadian Collaborative for Childhood Cannabinoid Therapeutics and the Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Medicinal Cannabis Research, the CMCN will provide the essential network infrastructure, and resources for conducting methodologically rigorous RCTs on medical cannabis, producing urgently needed evidence for clinicians, patients, and policymakers.