Research grade marijuana supplied by the National Institute on Drug Abuse is genetically divergent from commercially available Cannabis

Public comfort with Cannabis (marijuana and hemp) has recently increased, resulting in previously strict Cannabis regulations now allowing hemp cultivation, medical use, and in some states, recreational consumption. There is a growing interest in the potential medical benefits of the various chemical constituents produced by the Cannabis plant. Currently, the University of Mississippi, funded through the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH/NIDA), is the sole Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) licensed facility to cultivate Cannabis for research purposes. Hence, most federally funded research where participants consume Cannabis for medicinal purposes relies on NIDA-supplied product. Previous research found that cannabinoid levels in research grade marijuana supplied by NIDA did not align with commercially available Cannabis from Colorado, Washington and California. Given NIDA chemotypes were misaligned with commercial Cannabis, we sought to investigate where NIDAs research grade marijuana falls on the genetic spectrum of Cannabis groups. NIDA research grade marijuana was found to genetically group with Hemp samples along with a small subset of commercial drug-type Cannabis. A majority of commercially available drug-type Cannabis was genetically very distinct from NIDA samples. These results suggest that subjects consuming NIDA research grade marijuana may experience different effects than average consumers.