As a teenager, psychiatrist Christopher Hammond was concerned to see several friends develop problems related to cannabis, alcohol and opioid use that dramatically impacted their health and life trajectories. Today, he directs a full research program at Johns Hopkins dedicated to understanding how cannabis and other drugs affect brain development as well as physical and mental health in young people, with an eye toward finding new ways to prevent and treat cannabis use and other substance-related problems in that population.

“Substance use and addictive behaviors really begin for the majority of people during adolescence, which is a period of time where the brain is still maturing and is more sensitive to the effects of exposure to drugs,” says Hammond, medical director of Johns Hopkins’ Co-occurring Disorders in Adolescents and Young Adults Clinic. The facility is for patients with substance use and mental health conditions and their families. In the past five years, he has expanded his research to examine how changing state-level cannabis laws in the United States influence young people’s societal perceptions, cannabis use patterns and mental health outcomes.

Learn more about how cannabis use affects brain development and mental health.