The talk is free and open to the public and takes place Monday, April 21 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the Native Forum (Behavioral and Social Sciences Building, Rm. 162).
Dr. Aggarwal’s presentation, titled “Cannabinoid Medical Science and Political Ecology: Psychoactive Substances and Mental Distress,” will feature a medical-geographic perspective on the human-cannabis relationship as understood through a lens of political ecology and metrics such as health-related quality of life.
Dr. Aggarwal will present data from field research conducted in Washington State with 176 medical cannabis-using patients and one medical cannabis dispenser using medical records review, prospective surveys, interview, and participant-observation. Drawing on this research, Dr. Aggarwall will discuss a political ecology of health framework, which can help inform our understanding of other contraband psychoactive biota of social and therapeutic import.
Dr. Aggarwal is currently a senior resident in physical medicine and rehabilitation at New York University’s Lagone Medical Center and will soon begin a clinical fellowship in hospice and palliative medicine at the National Institutes of Health. He has published original research and reviews in Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Clinical Journal of Pain, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Harm Reduction Journal, American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Journal of Opioid Management, Medscape General Medicine, Denver University Law Review, and has published chapters in edited volumes such as The Pot Book and Principles and Practices of Palliative Care and Supportive Oncology. Aggarwal’s dissertation research examined the political ecology of mental distress and health-related quality of life, pain management, and symptom relief in 176 medical cannabis-using patients in urban and rural Washington State.