The appeal of marijuana research is undeniable. For marijuana users, the prospect of being paid to smoke their favorite indulgence all day seems almost too good to be true. Interviewing applicants on the phone constantly reaffirms this fact; people are always surprised that they are getting free, legal marijuana, even asking me to repeat that fact over to them as if I what I was saying is almost inconceivable. So, if this seems too good to be true, why does our lab frequently face the struggle to recruit participants for our studies?
During our initial screening process, we get hundreds of responses from callers all over the New York City area. After seeing our ads in the newspaper or on the Internet, many marijuana smokes jump at the opportunity to take part in our study. Those screening weeks are truly some of the most busy weeks at the lab, and all of our staff are huddled over the phone conducting interviews and keeping up with the pace of the mounting pile of applicants.
However, when it comes to accepting participants for our study, the outlook is much more bleak. The participant requirements for our study are quite strict, and many participants are knocked off the first round of screening simply because they are not fit for our study. On the outset, participants have to be in the NYC area, between the ages of 21 and 50, and current marijuana and cigarette smokers. After they pass these preliminary requirements, they also have to be willing to take part in our 32-day study, which consists of a full 16 day inpatient segment. Many people simply do not feel comfortable spending 16 days cut off from the outside world, confined to a small, windowless space (with no Internet! Cruel and unusual!). Furthermore, the requirement to quit smoking cigarettes for three weeks is daunting, and sometimes turns participants off the study completely. Once the participants know what they're getting into, they must then go through a phone interview, where we scrutinize their past drug use, their legal history, and their medical condition. Many participants who get to this stage end up having at least one factor that is outside of our study requirements.
At the end of it all, our hundreds of applicants dwindle down to just a handful of possible participants. We feel the most comfortable with at least 6-8 applicants for the outpatient segment of the study, so that we can safely count on 4 for the inpatient segment of the study.
The point of this all is that no matter how attractive and in-demand participating in this study is, participants must pass through many many requirements in order to be a fit subject. While we wish we could make the requirements more lenient to allow more participants to participate, science demands that we keep our requirements strict, so that we can best study the question at hand.
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