Citation

Keith DR, Gunderson EW, Haney M, Foltin RW, Hart CL. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2017; 178: 534-543.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, Columbia University, United States; Division on Substance Abuse, New York State Psychiatric Institute and Department of Psychiatry, College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, United States; Institute for Research in African-American Studies, Columbia University, United States. Electronic address: clh42@columbia.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2017.04.036

PMID

28728115

Abstract

Individuals who work nonstandard schedules, such as rotating or night shifts, are more susceptible to workplace injuries, performance decrements, and reduced productivity. This population is also almost twice as likely to use illicit drugs as individuals working a standard day shift. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of smoked marijuana on performance, mood, and sleep during simulated shift work. Ten experienced marijuana smokers completed this 23-day, within-participant residential study. They smoked a single marijuana cigarette (0, 1.9, 3.56% Δ(9)-THC) one hour after waking for three consecutive days under two shift conditions: day shift and night shift. Shifts alternated three times during the study, and shift conditions were separated by an 'off' day. When participants smoked placebo cigarettes, psychomotor performance and subjective-effect ratings were altered during the night shift compared to the day shift: performance (e.g., vigilance) and a few subjective ratings were decreased (e.g., "Self-Confident"), whereas other ratings were increased (e.g., "Tired").

OBJECTIVE and subjective measures of sleep were also disrupted, but to a lesser extent. Marijuana attenuated some performance, mood, and sleep disruptions: participants performed better on vigilance tasks, reported being less miserable and tired and sleep a greater number of minutes. Limited negative effects of marijuana were noted. These data demonstrate that abrupt shift changes produce performance, mood, and sleep decrements during night shift work and that smoked marijuana containing low to moderate Δ(9)-THC concentrations can offset some of these effects in frequent marijuana smokers.

Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Cannabis; Marijuana; Mood; Performance; Shift work; Sleep