Bio
Currently, Dr. Jag Khalsa serves as an Adjunct Professor at the George Washington University School of Medicine, Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Human Virology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, and a Special Volunteer/Guest Researcher at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), NIH. He retired on October 31, 2017, after 30 years as the Chief of the Medical Consequences of Drug Abuse and Infections Branch, NIDA, NIH, DHHS. With 50+ years of experience in drug research, he was responsible for developing/administering a national and international program of clinical research on medical and health consequences of drug abuse and co-occurring infections (HIV, HCV, and others). Prior to joining NIDA in 1987, he served for ~10 years as a pharmacologist/toxicologist assessing safety (carcinogenic/teratogenic) of chemicals [INDs/NDAs] and food additives and clinical evaluator at FDA. He has published in several peer-reviewed journals. He serves on editorial boards of Journals of Addiction Medicine, Current Psychopharmacology, Research on HIV/AIDS and Palliative Care, Frontiers of Neuroscience, and Clinical Infectious Diseases. He served on numerous Federal and NIH level committees including the HHS Viral Hepatitis Implementation Group (VHIG), National Commission on Digestive Diseases and its two sub-committees (Liver Research, Diabetes Research), Federal Task Force on TB, NIH Steering Committee on Centers for AIDS Research, and Human Microbiome Workgroup. He has received distinguished service awards from the FDA Commissioner, the Directors of NIH and NIDA, Society of Neuro-Immune-Pharmacology (SNIP), Life Time Achievement Awards from SNIP and International Conference on Molecular Medicine (India) and MIT, India; a commendation from the US Congressman Elijah Cummings, Awards of Merit and the Honorary Membership in the International Society of Addiction Medicine (ISAM), Honorary Membership in Iceland Society of Addiction Medicine, the President of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), Certificate of Appreciation from the Office of Assistant Secretary for Health (Drs. Howard Koh and Ron Valdiserri), DHHS, and a lifetime service award from the Society of Nano technology and Personalized Medicine. He has a Ph.D. in Neuro- psychopharmacology, a master’s degree in Pharmacology/Pharmacognosy (Herbal Pharmacology), bachelor’s degrees in Chemistry/Botany and Pharmacy, post-doctoral training in CNS/Cardiovascular pharmacology at SK&F, and Environmental Toxicology at Stanford Research Institute International. E- mail: jag [dot] khalsa [at] nih [dot] gov; personal e-mail: jkhalsa [at] yahoo [dot] com
Abstract
CBD for Treating Neuropsychiatric Complications of COVID-19 and Role of Addiction Physician
The world is facing one of the most devastating viral pandemics of our time where about 215 million people have been infected with a novel corona virus- known as severe acute respiratory syndrome cornonavirus-2 (SARS-Cov2), and more than 4.8 million people have died from the corona virus induced disease (COVID-19). The COVID-19 pandemic is responsible for unprecedented loss of life, economic, social, and health consequences including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), cardiovascular, mental health including anxiety, depression, and neurological complications like tremors, seizures and impaired consciousness.
Most recently, Volkow’s group recently reported that people with SUDs are at heightened risk of acquiring SARS-Cov2 infection. They suffer not only from SARS-Cov2 related health consequences including ‘long-haul’ effects, but also when they are infected with other multiple viral infections including HIV and HCV. Extensive efforts are underway to develop preventive vaccines and therapeutics such as remdesivir, dexamethasone, convalescent plasma, and others to treat COVID-19 but many ‘long-haulers’ patients report residual mental health and other problems after recovery. Cannabis and its products such as cannabidiol (CBD) are being advertised for the treatment of COVID-19 associated mental health problems, anxiety, depression, PTSD, and substance use disorders. In this presentation, Dr. Khalsa will discuss the health effects of COVID-19, and whether there is sufficient clinical evidence to support the use of cannabis/cannabinoids for treating COVID-19 related health effects6, and if time permits, the current research on CBD for treating substance use disorders; and Dr. Bunt will discuss the role of addiction physicians in dealing with patients with SUDs requesting cannabis or CBD prescription for any of the COVID-19 health effects.