By Nicole Ireland The Canadian Press

Federal Minister of Health Marjorie Michel has announced $24 million to create the Canadian Cannabis and Brain Health Consortium.

Funded through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the group of 10 research teams from across Canada will work together to study how cannabis affects the brain in people of various ages.

The consortium, announced Wednesday, aims to establish scientific evidence about both potential benefits and harms of cannabis, including its effects on epilepsy, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, sleep, mental health and brain development in youth and during pregnancy.

Dr. Patricia Conrod, scientific director at CIHR’s Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction, says the researchers will also recruit more than 3,000 people of all ages and collect data about brain function, mental health and substance use across the lifespan.

She says that data will be open for other Canadian researchers to use in their own studies about cannabis.

Conrod says Canadian research on cannabis and its health effects geared up after the drug was legalized in 2018, but there are still many gaps in knowledge the researchers will address.

“It’s bringing together Canada’s top brain health and cannabis researchers in order to really bring us to another place in terms of understanding the potential benefits and the potential harms of cannabis use for our population,” she said.

The 10 research team leaders for the consortium are from Université de Sherbrooke, Université de Montréal, McGill University, Dalhousie University, McMaster University, University of Waterloo and the University of Calgary.