Earlier this week, news broke about the biggest changes to federal drug policy in more than half a century.of Associated Press reported— and later the Department of Justice. Confirmed-The Drug Enforcement Administration plans to reclassify marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act. Since the 1970s, it has been classified as Schedule I, a highly controlled group that includes drugs such as heroin, which has a high potential for abuse and cannot be used for medical purposes. However, cannabis will soon be moved to Schedule III, which is far less restrictive. Schedule III includes prescription drugs such as ketamine and Tylenol, which contain codeine and have a moderate to low risk of addiction.
Recreational marijuana is now legal for adults 21 and older in 24 states, home to more than half of the U.S. population. According to recent information, harris poll, about 40 percent of Americans use cannabis, and a quarter use it at least weekly. Still, researchers and doctors said there was still no scientific consensus on the drug’s exact effects, particularly on the heart and lungs, mental health and adolescent brain development. Finding better answers to these questions becomes even more important because rescheduling marijuana will further expand access.
Conveniently, rescheduling marijuana may also facilitate in-depth research by expanding previously limited or non-existent research opportunities. Deregulation will ultimately mean learning more about the potential harms and benefits of drugs that have been both popular and demonized for decades.
Historically, the scope of cannabis research has been fairly limited. The National Institute on Drug Abuse, the federal government’s main research funder, has been directed to study the harms, not the potential benefits, of cannabis use, said Amanda Lyman, chief knowledge officer at New Frontier Data. It is said that they are doing so. (New Frontier is an analytics company focused on the legal cannabis industry.) 2018 Study on the Potential Harms of Cannabis Use received That’s more than double the money spent on research into its medical or therapeutic uses in the US, UK and Canada. In 2020, a NIDA spokesperson said: science The agency, which has traditionally focused on marijuana addiction, has begun exploring the therapeutic potential of compounds found in cannabis. handle Dependence on other substances.
U.S. policies make marijuana research of any kind extremely difficult. Until recently, scientists had to obtain supplies from NIDA’s high-security facility in Mississippi. (Additionally, he said that there are 6 sources approved Researchers regularly complained that the marijuana was moldy, low in THC and CBD, and nowhere near the quality that consumers could legally purchase at their local dispensary.
Peter Grinspoon, a physician and medical cannabis expert at Massachusetts General Hospital, says most of the existing research on how cannabis affects our hearts, brains, and society as a whole is based on self-reported data. It is based on survey data by. Such data is “notoriously inaccurate,” he says. But because marijuana is a Schedule I drug, researchers are forced to rely on these methods. So federally funded studies can’t simply administer marijuana to people from state-approved dispensaries and record what happens.
As a result, the field lacks the high-quality research needed for researchers to agree on its effects, says Nick, an associate professor at Assumption University in Massachusetts who studies marijuana’s effects on traumatic brain injury.・Mr. Shioe says: Randomized controlled trials are the gold standard for determining the harms and benefits of certain drugs, but when it comes to cannabis, they’ve been nearly impossible. The FDA approved While there are some cannabis-derived products available to treat symptoms such as seizures and chemotherapy-induced nausea, it’s not the same as understanding the effects of recreational cannabis.
Once marijuana use is officially postponed, it will be much easier for researchers to study the drug’s effects. Although researching federally controlled substances is difficult, obtaining the appropriate permits to use Schedule III drugs in the laboratory is much easier than Schedule I drugs. Scientists also have far more opportunities to obtain federal grants from all types of government agencies. As policymakers try to understand the impact of legalization, the National Institutes of Health, the EPA, and even the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Just because the DEA makes marijuana’s new status official doesn’t mean human trials will begin. R. Lorraine Collins, director of the Center for Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research at the University at Buffalo, said researchers need to wait for guidance from federal agencies such as the FDA and NIH. And given the restrictions on Schedule III drugs, scientists still can’t easily purchase the same cannabis consumed by millions of Americans from local dispensaries.
Schedule III won’t “magically alleviate the bureaucratic headaches” associated with cannabis research, Grinspoon said. But “it’s going to be a lot easier to say, ‘Let’s give this person cannabis and see what happens to their blood pressure.'”
