A Sad Truth: Hemp & Cannabis Research and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
I wrote this piece for the CBD Education Network in April 2020.
Between 2000 and 2018, over $1.5 billion dollars was spent on government-funded cannabis research in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom combined. Over $1 billion dollars of that was budgeted to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a federal agency here in the U.S. that diverted the vast majority of that funding to highlighting the harms associated with cannabis and hemp.
As the states moved towards medical and recreational use, this federal agency, rather than focus on the therapeutic benefits of cannabis, instead put the focus of there efforts towards exposing negatives. One would think an organization that achieved FDA approval in 1993 for an early Opioid addiction treatment called (Levomethadyl Acetate, which was later deemed unsafe and recalled) , would instead look to the active compounds in cannabis for its benefits rather that its negatives. When Science Magazine looked at the data recently however, it revealed a sad truth. This institute appears stuck in the past, much like federal policy on Hemp and Cannabis.
ABOUT NIDA
In 1974, NIDA was established as the Federal focal point for research, treatment, prevention, training, services, and data collection on the nature and extent of drug abuse. Eleven years later, they were finally able to get a newsletter out on a consistent basis.
In 1986, NIDA acknowledged the dual challenge of intravenous drug addiction and the AIDs epidemic which, beginning in 1982, had become a very public crisis. This represents and important benchmark in their efforts as, much like their lack of efforts to undermine the therapeutic potential of cannabis, their efforts to connect drug abuse and AIDs seemed a referendum on the past. That connection was well established years earlier. For a full historical overview of the NIDA's efforts and a chronology of their legislative efforts, check here on the National Institute of Health's website.
In reading that history, it seems clear that NIDA has made a number of important and meaningful contributions to addressing addiction issues, both legislatively and through educational initiatives. In the case of cannabis however, it seems that they have failed to react to the prevailing cultural an legal changes. One can only imagine their challenges internally of reassessing their position on a drug that to this day, remains classified as a Schedule I narcotic. Yet, they have had almost 25 years since California's Compassionate Care Act, and still choose to focus on the negative aspects.
And the research they decide to fund is clearly a choice they control.
THE FOCUS AND SHORTFALLS OF FEDERAL FUNDING
In a recent article, Daniel Mallinson, a cannabis policy researcher at Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg, outlined for Science Magazine the issue at hand.
“The government’s budget is a political statement about what we value as a society,” “The fact that most of the cannabis money is going to drug abuse and probably to cannabis use disorder versus medical purposes—that says something.”
What that 'something' is, is pretty clear. The Federal budget allocations to cannabis research, as well as funding that the NIDA is responsible for distributing, remains guided by dated doctrine and at this point probably serves more to embolden the pharmaceutical companies that to reveal potentially beneficial medical properties of cannabinoids.
As more and more states legalize and regulate both cannabis and hemp, the shortage of federally funded research dollars spent on medical applications of cannabinoids becomes quite clear. From ill-informed public policy decisions at the state and municipal level to the more concerning lack of guidance and real understanding of use and application at the consumer level, these poorly considered allocations of funding for cannabis research has real repercussions. The breadth of those repercussions will make itself clear as more and more consumers turn to cannabis as an alternative to traditional medicines, and as research lags behind growing use and acceptance.