Cannabis has only been a small part of a few research conducted in the United States over the past many decades. Cannabis has long been banned by the federal government and stigmatized by the medical and scientific professions.
The vast majority of cannabis studies conducted by universities, pharmaceutical firms, and other organizations – and frequently funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institutes of Health, which are cannabinoid skeptics – have concentrated on addiction and impairment, impact on teens, and other potentially harmful effects of cannabis.
Although they aren’t exactly smoking blunts with NORML on the front lines of legalization, federal agencies like the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Food and Drug Administration aren’t the anti-marijuana zealots they were a decade ago.
DEA increases licenses
For instance, the DEA expanded from one to six the number of organizations with licenses to grow cannabis for federally permitted research in the last year. The organization has also granted cannabis research licenses, some to organizations that already hold state-issued marijuana business permits, like Colorado-based MedPharm Holdings.
Federal financing prospects for cannabis research have slightly increased, and at least one state-licensed marijuana business, CT Pharma in Connecticut, has received federal authority to supply cannabis for a study in collaboration with Yale University. Due to a clause in the $1 trillion federal infrastructure package passed last year allowing researchers to utilize cannabis from state-licensed firms, research funding is set to rise.
Many cannabis researchers and producers who have received government approval claim that the DEA and FDA have been helpful allies.
“It’s been a pleasure working with the DEA. I’ll admit that they move slowly. But generally speaking, they’re pretty responsive,” MedPharm CEO Albert Gutierrez said earlier this year to MJBizDaily.
The executive director of the Scottsdale Research Institute, one of the six organizations to be granted federal cannabis growing clearance, Dr. Sue Sisley, stated of the DEA, “The DEA has been an extraordinarily collaborative supporter… ever since I started working with them 15 years ago.” “We have a great relationship with the DEA.”
expanding collaborations
The therapeutic benefits of cannabis have also been reluctant to gain acceptance in American medical, scientific, and pharmaceutical circles, though this is also evolving.
In fact, a few academic institutions are researching the potential medical benefits of cannabis. One such study into pain management was organized by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York in collaboration with the Minnesota-based multistate operator Vireo Health, a division of Goodness Growth Holdings.
The buy-in from physicians and providers has changed significantly, according to Dr. Stephen Dahmer, chief medical officer at Vireo. “I’ve noticed a huge shift in bias.”
Despite these advancements, it is still very challenging to obtain research approval due to marijuana’s classification as a Schedule 1 narcotic. The amount of time, effort, and money required to obtain federal approval to study cannabis remains too much of a squeeze for the juice in return, according to several research organizations.
While Papa & Barkley, a California-based manufacturer of infused goods, uses its so-called in-home-use studies to gather information on product performance, other cannabis CEOs forego the government framework in favor of polling their own user databases.
devoted customers
The majority of studies on cannabis are still focused on its negative effects, but more and more studies are examining how marijuana affects particular diseases, including those related to pain relief, opiate replacement, brain inflammation, and sleep issues, among others.
This is crucial now that the cannabis market is developing to the point that customers, who earlier were happy to switch between products, would increasingly choose products that offer constant relief, according to Dahmer.
For new patients who enter any market, there is a fairly noticeable percentage of attrition, according to Dahmer. “Finding a therapy that really works for patients is one method to combat attrition.”
