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Cannabis is labeled as a Schedule 1 drug—the same category as heroin and LSD—and, despite being legal in many states, is illegal on a federal level.

Here's how approved research is conducted on cannabis.

Why is Researching Cannabis so Hard?

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Cannabis is labeled as a Schedule 1 drug—the same category as heroin and LSD—and, despite being legal in many states, is illegal on a federal level.

Here's how approved research is conducted on cannabis.

Body & Brain

Why is Researching Cannabis so Hard?Published: November 10, 2021Matt Hill: Why don’t we have more science on cannabis? Sadly, it comes down to bureaucracy at the end of the day. Cannabis was highly inappropriately labeled as a Schedule I drug in the United States.Ziva Cooper: It is in the same class of drugs as heroin and LSD drugs that are deemed to not have any therapeutic benefit and are high for risk, high for abuse. So even though all these states have legalized it, at a federal level, it is illegal.Matt Hill: And so because of that, for a researcher to acquire a license from the DEA to allow them to do work with Schedule I drugs is an incredible process.Daniele Piomelli: You need to show that you keep the compound in a double-locked safe inside a locked freezer in a locked facility.Ziva Cooper: Two 24-hour cameras looking at our storage area to make sure that nobody’s breaking into it.Daniele Piomelli: And you pull it out, and what you see is this tiny little vial with 10 milligrams of THC inside. Every single milligram has to be accounted for when we could go to a dispensary next door and buy a gram of THC in cookies, for example.And that is I think one of the main reasons why it’s so hard currently to work on cannabinoids is you have to jump through hoops.Ziva Cooper: What that does is it limits the number of researchers who can actually study this substance because they don’t have the time or the funds to be able to have an adequate storage facility and have the time to be able to apply for the Schedule I license.Matt Hill: From many of my colleagues who do the human psychopharmacology work, where they’re administering drugs to people, I’ve been told on repeated occasion it’s much easier to give someone methamphetamine than it is to give them THC.Ziva Cooper: One primary hurdle is funding. Where can we get the funding to actually do these studies? And they're not cheap studies. I mean, we're talking many millions of dollars to be able to do a proper clinical study, investigating the effects of cannabis for a medical indication.Narrator: Most funding for cannabis research in the US comes from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. But the Department of Defense awards grants as well, in addition to some departments within state governments where cannabis has been legalized. Because of federal laws governing research, studying cannabis is constrained in ways that recreational use in states where it’s legalized is not.Staci Gruber: What we can study with regards to being able to administer cannabis-based products to people in clinical trials, they don’t approximate anything that people can avail themselves of in a dispensary. Things like concentrates, dabs, wax, butter. They don’t have that.Ziva Cooper: So the cannabis that I’m studying in my laboratory isn’t the same cannabis that people are using down the street. And that has important ramifications because it impacts what my findings mean for patients that are using a different type of cannabis.Staci Gruber: In terms of doing studies on actual real-world patients using real-world products, you have to be very creative about how you do it. You either have to watch people use their own products or do longitudinal observational studies or utilize products that don’t require that same Schedule I restriction. It’s a very complicated landscape.

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NOVA investigates the story of cannabis from the criminalization that has disproportionately harmed communities of color to the latest medical understanding of the plant. What risks does cannabis pose to the developing brain? How much do we know about its potential medical benefits? As cannabis becomes socially accepted, scientists are exploring its long-term health consequences. (Premiered September 29, 2021)Check out a previously recorded panel discussion and audience Q&amp;A featuring experts and producers from "The Cannabis Question" <a href="https://youtu.be/nSTT5RZ_hxA">here</a>.

As state-legalized cannabis spreads, NOVA explores its little-known risks and benefits.

The Cannabis Question

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Why is Researching Cannabis so Hard?

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