PULLMAN, Wash. — It isn’t just people – when given the chance, rats may also use cannabis to cope with stress, according to a study by researchers at Washington State University.

Published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology , the study was designed to examine cannabis-seeking behavior and found that rats with higher natural stress levels were far more likely to self-administer the popular recreational drug.

"We ran rats through this extensive battery of behavioral and biological tests, and what we found was that when we look at all of these different factors and all the variables that we measured, stress levels seem to matter the most when it comes to cannabis use,” said Ryan McLaughlin, associate professor in WSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

McLaughlin and his team of under

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