Ashley Brooks-Russell
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus, CO·Public Health & Epidemiology
As cannabis use and legalization have spread across the United States, so have worries about people driving while impaired. The trouble is that there is no good roadside way to tell whether someone used cannabis recently.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
cannabis
marijuana
impaired driving
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2028
What they work on
- Test the repeatability of cannabis detection measurements within and between methods by comparing repeat readings of breath cannabinoids and of pupil size and light response in the same participants.
- Determine how long acute cannabis effects remain detectable by breath and ocular devices, using repeated post-use assessments across a 4.5-hour window in 45 participants.
- Evaluate the joint predictive validity of breath sampling combined with pupil dynamics for identifying recent cannabis use, comparing pre- and post-use measurements in a within-subjects design.
- Compare the performance of two commercial or near-commercial breath-sampling devices and two ocular devices under real-world conditions to quantify their measurement uncertainty and reliability.
More about the research
Blood and urine tests require taking a sample, and because cannabis compounds linger in the body long after the effects wear off, a positive result does not reliably mean recent use. Impairment peaks for only a few hours after use, so what is needed is a measurement that is objective, requires no needle, and can be carried to the roadside. This study evaluates two candidates: sampling a person's breath for cannabinoids, and measuring pupil dynamics, meaning the size of the pupil and how quickly it reacts to light. Devices using both approaches are close to market or already sold, but independent testing of how reliable and how predictive they actually are is scarce.
Why it matters
Police, public health agencies, and transportation safety officials currently lack a practical way to identify drivers impaired by cannabis during the hours when impairment is greatest. Independent validation of breath-sampling and pupil-measurement devices would show how much these readings vary in realistic conditions and how well they flag recent use, giving agencies evidence for which tools to adopt and giving device makers standards to meet, with the goal of preventing crash injuries.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jacob Borodovsky
Dartmouth College, NH·Public Health & Epidemiology
Test whether psychotherapeutic advertising claims, ads saying cannabis treats anxiety or depression, increase THC purchased by users with depression or anxiety, by randomizing 2,000 shoppers across four versions of a simulated online dispensary.
Jost Klawitter
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus, CO·Pharmacology
Measure cannabinoids such as THC and cannabis terpenes in samples from users at different life stages to assess exposure and drug-drug interactions, and build a biobank of these samples for future research.
James Reilly
Temple University, PA·Psychology
Detect emerging semantic deficits, loss of word and concept knowledge, in naturalistic narrative language samples from a cohort of older African American adults at elevated risk for dementia.
The school
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus: 41 labs on PI Pages, $766M a year on research, 205 research doctorates a year.
More about University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus
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