Marijuana is going mainstream in the US. On 1 January, Colorado became the first state in the country to allow recreational use of the drug. Washington is set to do the same within the next few months, and many others are considering similar measures.
Critics of these moves say that legalizing marijuana will increase consumption, leading to an uptick in substance use problems. And with more than 4 million Americans already dependent on or abusing marijuana—making cannabis the number 3 recreational drug after alcohol and tobacco—scientists and public health officials are increasingly fretting over the dearth of available pharmacologic treatments for marijuana addiction. “Every day we are growing more concerned about the number of people seeking treatment,” says Ivan Montoya, a psychiatrist and epidemiologist who serves as deputy director in the division of pharmacotherapies at the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in Bethesda, Maryland. Read more in Nature Medicine.