Study focuses on cannabis’ effect on menstruation

HALIFAX— In the wake of cannabis legalization, more Canadian women might be looking for answers about using the drug and its relationship to their health.

Kayla Joyce, 23, is engaged in psychiatric research in the second year of her master’s degree at Dalhousie University. For her thesis, she is examining patterns of cannabis use and addiction found in women across their menstrual cycle.

“A lot of the research that has been done to date has been done mostly with male subjects,” Joyce said.

“A lot of my participants come in and they tell me that they’re trying to find studies that look at women’s cannabis use or addictive behaviours in general, but they haven’t been able to find anything. So that is one of the main reasons why I got involved.”

According to Joyce, research surrounding women’s cannabis use has yielded mixed results.

“The findings often fight each other,” she said.

She wanted to develop a better study to examine cannabis use across the menstrual cycle, so in an upcoming study, 80 subjects will be surveyed about their cannabis consumption over a 32-day span.

“We’ve looked at alcohol consumption, gambling and now cannabis use across the menstrual cycle. So now we’re trying to get all our findings and combine them into some sort of educational tool for women to look at different sorts of addictions in women,” she said.