Johannes Thrul

Targeting maladaptive pain coping may reduce craving & misuse risk.

@cdnordeck.bsky.social @momartelmcgill.bsky.social @drkellydunn.bsky.social

@johnshopkinssph.bsky.social @dmh-bsph.bsky.social @hopkinsmedicine.bsky.social

When do people with chronic pain crave opioids or cannabis most?

Our new study in DAD followed patients for 30 days using real-time surveys.

🔹 Craving ↑ on co-use days
🔹 Pain catastrophizing was strongest predictor
🔹 ~⅓ reported little/no craving

authors.elsevier.com/a/1lj4z1LiD3...

New paper in @ecp-editor.bsky.social: Trials on cannabis for chronic pain often miss what matters most to patients: sleep, coping, function, opioid substitution. Time to look beyond pain scores. 👉 doi.org/10.1037/pha0...

@dmh-bsph.bsky.social @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social

U.S. Drinking Drops to New Low, Poll Finds

Recent Gallup poll numbers on drinking in America show historic lows. I spoke with @nytimes.com about potential reasons incl changes in social norms, harm perceptions, and cannabis.

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/w...

@johnshopkinssph.bsky.social @dmh-bsph.bsky.social

📢 Participants Needed!
Work from home & office?
Join a Johns Hopkins study on work environments & well-being.
🏷️ Earn a $120 gift card
📩 homeworkproject@jh.edu | 📱 410-575-4631

Please share widely!
@johnshopkinssph.bsky.social @jhpoecenter.bsky.social

Stakeholder perspectives on digital wellbeing in Saudi Arabia: a cross-sectional survey - BMC Public Health Background In Saudi Arabia, the rapid growth of digital media and smartphone use has raised concerns about problematic usage and its impacts on well-being, especially among young people. Research on s...

7/ Open access paper: doi.org/10.1186/s128...
Thanks to co-first authors Saud & Michelle, all co-authors, participants, and funding by Ithra Sync.
@johnshopkinssph.bsky.social
@dmh-bsph.bsky.social

6/ These findings directly inform the next phase:
We are co-developing a digital wellbeing intervention for Saudi adolescents, to be evaluated through a randomized controlled trial.

5/ Stakeholders emphasized the importance of culturally grounded interventions aligned with family and religious values.
Some participants described using faith-based commitments to control use.

4/ The survey included 92 stakeholders:
– Youth, parents, and educators
– Clinicians and policymakers
– Tech professionals, gamers, and digital content creators
The sample was diverse but concentrated in central Saudi regions.

3/ What stakeholders support:
– Strong endorsement for school-based programs and parent-targeted education (each >75% support).
– Also supported: apps to help regulate use.
– Less enthusiasm for regulatory policies or hospital-based interventions.

2/ Key findings:
– 48% of participants reported ≥4 hrs/day of recreational screen time on weekdays (57% on weekends).
– Top concerns: sleep disruption, reduced physical activity, impaired concentration.
– 73% had attempted self-regulation (e.g., app deletion, digital detox).

1/ Our new study in BMC Public Health examines stakeholder perspectives on digital wellbeing in Saudi Arabia.
Findings point to high screen time, concerns about health impacts, and strong support for education-based interventions.
🧾 doi.org/10.1186/s128...

3/3 @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social
@dmh-bsph.bsky.social
@jhu.edu

Cannabis and Health Research Initiative (CHRI) A platform of data collection and dissemination focused on the health outcomes of therapeutic cannabis use at the patient level.

2/3 Our approach identified 45k medicinal cannabis patients at Hopkins.

Still refining the prompt and extraction but hope to share tools later this year. In the meantime, check out our project + open-access assessment instruments:
🌿 www.cannabisandhealth.org

1/3 Had a great time at my first @researchmj.bsky.social meeting in Detroit. Fantastic science & welcoming community. Highly recommend for anyone in the cannabis research space.

We shared our work using LLMs + NLP to extract structured data from EMRs.

Thanks for your interest and the heads up. We'll get this fixed ASAP. We had a lot of bot problems with the survey in the past and maybe over-corrected on security crackdown 😆

5/5 Shoutout to an excellent group of colleagues, including senior author @juststrickland.bsky.social
@johnshopkinssph.bsky.social
@dmh-bsph.bsky.social
@jhu.edu ‬

4/5 THC-dominant medicinal cannabis may help reduce anxiety & depression, acutely & over months, in new users.
But we still need controlled trials to weigh safety, dosing, & sustainability of effects.

3/5 Most people used THC-dominant products
Vaporized & oral routes were most common
Acute reductions were dose-dependent: 10–15 mg oral THC or ~3+ puffs worked best for symptom relief.

2/5 Initiating THC-dominant medicinal cannabis was linked with significant acute reductions in anxiety & depression.
Symptoms dropped below clinically significant levels within 3 months for most people.

1/5 New paper on medicinal cannabis: We followed adults with clinically significant anxiety & depression who were new to medicinal cannabis using 8 weeks of EMA and 6 months of longitudinal follow up and saw significant and clinically meaningful benefits.
authors.elsevier.com/c/1lQBfbXYiy...

2/2 We’re using these in our ongoing medicinal cannabis registry and I believe harmonizing measures is key for large-scale research in cannabis. Reach out with questions or interest in collaborating. @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social @dmh-bsph.bsky.social

Cannabis and Health Research Initiative (CHRI) A platform of data collection and dissemination focused on the health outcomes of therapeutic cannabis use at the patient level.

1/2 Cannabis researchers: We’ve developed new instruments to help standardize self-reported cannabis data.
- Cannabis Use Questionnaire (CUQ)
- Core Assessment Battery on Cannabis (CABC)
Both are free to download (Qualtrics, REDCap):
www.cannabisandhealth.org

4/4 Big thank you to first author Josef Hamoud and all co-authors for an excellent collaboration. @janardan.bsky.social @felixnaughton.bsky.social

3/4 Somehow the OSF link did not make it into the paper, but data and messages are here: osf.io/4ux8q/files/...
I hope this is useful to folks.

2/4 📲 Findings inform message tailoring in our ongoing app-based trials.
#SmokingCessation #DigitalHealth #TobaccoControl #mHealth
@johnshopkinssph.bsky.social @dmh-bsph.bsky.social

Smoking cessation message testing to inform app-based interventions for young adults – an online experiment - BMC Public Health Background To improve the efficacy of digital smoking cessation interventions for young adults, intervention messages need to be acceptable and appropriate for this population. The current study compa...

1/4 🚭 New from our lab in BMC Public Health!
We tested 124 digital smoking cessation messages with over 300 young adults who smoke. Acceptance- and distraction-based messages were rated similarly overall, with some but key differences by sociodemographics.
doi.org/10.1186/s128...

Excited to have this paper out in @apsad-dar.bsky.social: We collected EMA data on drinking in the postpartum period and found that maternal self-efficacy may be a more relevant intervention target than drinking self-efficacy.

Promo graphic for episode 889 of Public Health On Call podcast, titled Zyn Nicotine Pouches.

What are Zyn nicotine pouches and how can they impact health?

@meghannnn.bsky.social and @drjthrul.bsky.social explains how they work, how they’re marketed, and what we know—and don’t yet know—about their long-term health effects.

Listen now: podcast.publichealth.jhu.edu/889-zyn-nico...

Do you want to capture health behavior as it happens? My summer institute on EMA is coming up at the end of this month. Spots are limited - don't miss out! @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social @dmh-bsph.bsky.social