It is a true honour to receive such a prestigious award from an organisation as renowned and revered as the ANCP. As a researcher, the greatest praise you can receive is the acknowledgement of your work by your peers.
Dr Amir Englund, King's IoPPN
13 January 2025
Dr Amir Englund is awarded the ACNP Neuropsychopharmacology Editors' Award for a Transformative Original Report
The American College of Neuropsychopharmacology NEATOR Award was presented to Dr Englund at a ceremony in Phoenix, Arizona on 9 December.
Dr Amir Englund, a Research Fellow currently based in the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, but conducted the study when part of the Addictions and Psychosis Studies department within the School of Academic Psychiatry, received the award for the 2023 paper, Does cannabidiol make cannabis safer? A randomised, double-blind, cross-over trial of cannabis with four different CBD:THC ratios (Amir Englund, Dominic Oliver, Edward Chesney, Lucy Chester, Jack Wilson, Simina Sovi, Andrea De Micheli, John Hodsoll, Paolo Fusar-Poli, John Strang, Robin M Murray, Tom P Freeman, Philip McGuire), published in Neuropsychopharmacology.
Developed in 2013, the NEATOR Award recognises the best original paper published in Neuropsychopharmacology during the previous year.
Dr Englund’s award winning paper challenges the commonly held belief that using cannabis that contains higher levels of CBD protects the user from psychotic experiences and memory problems and suggests that this should be considered by policy makers currently exploring the topic of medicinal and recreational use.
46 healthy volunteers completed a randomised and double-blind trial. Over the course of four experiments, each participant inhaled cannabis vapour containing 10mg of THC and a differing level of CBD (0mg, 10mg, 20mg, or 30mg). They then completed a series of tasks, questionnaires and interviews designed to measure the effect on their cognitive abilities, severity of psychotic symptoms, and how pleasurable the drug was.
The same research team had previously found that pre-emptively taking a high dose of CBD in a capsule a few hours before using cannabis may reduce the adverse effects of THC
In this study, they explored the effect of altering the CBD:THC ratio in cannabis. However, they found increasing the dose of CBD did not significantly change the effects of THC on cognitive performance, psychotic symptoms or how pleasurable the drug experience was. The study team concluded that the quantities of CBD found in most cannabis in legal and illegal markets are insufficient to reduce the harms of the THC it contains. However, cannabis varieties with higher ratios of CBD:THC may still be less harmful to users – not because of the CBD, but because these varieties naturally produce less THC.
In this story
Research Fellow