After the rezoning of marijuana, cannabis research leads to legalization

Kim Rivers runs a company that specializes in medical marijuana. Following President Donald Trump’s Dec. 18 move to loosen federal restrictions on the drug, Rivers’s Florida-headquartered Trulieve Cannabis Corp. wants to bring a cannabis-based drug to market – specifically, an “extended-release product” aimed at Parkinson’s disease sufferers.

Major advances in medicine and science are expected when marijuana is officially Schedule 3. But separating marijuana from drugs like anabolic steroids and Tylenol with codeine has another profound benefit. Only through cannabis research will advocates get what they want and see marijuana decriminalized — and, eventually, legalized nationally, business leaders and advocates say.

“Everybody talks about Schedule 3 from a tax perspective,” said Boris Jordan, chairman and founder of rival marijuana company Curaleaf Holdings, referring to Internal Revenue Code Section 280E, which applies to Schedule 1 and 2 drugs and prohibits the basic business deduction on federal returns.

“And, that’s good,” Jordan said MJBizDaily. But “the most important thing” is to be able to show, through data and clinical research, “which parts of the plant are dangerous, if any, and which types of use of this plant are dangerous, if any,” he added.

“Only then will that industry be legalized nationally in the US”

Trump’s marijuana repeal will disrupt decades of research

For decades, American researchers wanting to know what marijuana is have had two options, and neither: Rely on anecdotal accounts based on research from users, or jump through hoops to find “research-grade” marijuana that closely resembles the products sold in dispensaries and retail shelves in nearly 40 states.

It was that “research-based” data, much of it provided by states with medical marijuana programs, that led the Department of Health and Human Services to declare in August 2023 that marijuana is “currently used medically” in the United States.

Both the proposed Biden-era legislation to reclassify marijuana as Schedule 3 and Trump’s December 18 executive order hinge on those key findings. That is only the beginning. From here, researchers will be able to say with confidence what high-THC vaporizers, effective THC blends and other products are made of.

“Now we can go and do important clinical trial-type research using real marijuana products that the American people use,” Rivers told former Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz during an interview with One America News Network (OANN).

But cannabis companies still have a way to go before they can compete with Big Pharma — if that’s the goal.

Can the cannabis industry compete with Big Pharma?

In the absence of major government intervention in the form of funding and other resources, developing treatments approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States is an expensive and time-consuming process.

The reorganization should make it easier for researchers to study cannabis-based medicines – and, with a saving of 280E, get the money to pay for it.

Vigilant institutions that rely on government funding like universities and hospitals won’t worry about touching marijuana. With the federal tax reform, cannabis companies will have more money to fund science, in the form of more profits and more investor dollars.

And at the same time, although details are still thin, Trump’s executive order announced an effort to research cannabis.

The executive order directs Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and Mehmet Oz, director of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services to “develop research methods and models that use real-world evidence to improve access to hemp-derived cannabinoid products.”

However, there are problems.

Cannabis research red tape still exists thanks to a Biden-era bill

As some anti-cannabis groups have been complaining about, the Biden administration’s research bill puts restrictions on cannabis-specific research into effect without retroactively.

This is one of the reasons why the Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act, co-sponsored by US Rep. Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican and one of the key proponents of the upcoming ban on THC found in hemp and signed into law by former President Joe Biden in late 2022, seems to have done little in the nearly three years since his passing.

However, researchers or lawyers familiar with the problem do not expect this law to work as some of its supporters intended and grasped the science of cannabis.

“The Biden-era research legislation was designed to create a clear path for cannabis studies, but its impact is limited because the requirements remain consistent with Schedule 3 laws,” said Chad Johnson, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences and director of the Graduate Studies in Medical Cannabis Science and Therapeutics Program at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.

“Restructuring in Schedule 3 will not automatically change those provisions, but it will reduce discrimination and encourage more institutions and funders to conduct research,” added Johnson. “Eventually, Congress may need to revise the law to fully comply with the new classification.”

That could happen if hospitals, universities or cannabis companies find that the reform is unscientific, said Shane Pennington, a partner at the national law firm Blank Rome, and contributor Matt Zorn, drawing attention to the limitations included in the research bill.

“Everyone wants that research to be done,” he said MJBizDaily. “I don’t think anybody intended (Biden’s bill) to hinder research. That was not the intention.”

“I’m sure that one way or another this will make great advances in research.”

Fears that Schedule 3 may not go far enough amid funding cuts and attacks on higher education

First, cannabis science conducted abroad can finally be considered by American researchers — and, more importantly, by regulators.

Jordan’s Curaleaf is funding studies to the tune of hundreds of millions overseas, and has a clinical trial in the works in the United Kingdom. That data organization controllers and legislators will be able to take into account.

However, some university researchers will still face obstacles in the form of general advice that warns or dashes or provosts are against cannabis – and lack of money. That’s because the Trump administration, with the encouragement of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, is cutting federal research grants.

For these reasons, “I don’t have a lot of faith that this will go anywhere,” said Josh Meisel, a sociology professor and founder of the Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research at Cal Poly Humboldt in Arcata, California.

Universities have been on high alert because of the Trump administration’s willingness to withdraw billions in funding — or at least threaten to do so — because of college protests or other suspected wrongdoing. That would encourage US schools to follow suit with banks and refuse to do business with cannabis without more specific approval, such as an act of Congress.

“There’s a lot of concern (in the California State University program) about abuse by the feds,” Meisel said. “That’s why I come to this with some doubts.”

Chris Roberts can be reached at chris.roberts@mjbizdaily.com.