"Rescheduling will not answer every question overnight, but it will make it easier. It may also help pave the way for more rational healthcare policies."
By Joanna Zeiger, Canna Research Foundation
During my career as an Olympian and Ironman 70.3 World Champion in the early 2000s, cannabis was a banned substance—a potential career-ender, not medicine. Today's rescheduling debate echoes those same misconceptions.
I spent eight years at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics (IBG) at the University of Colorado Boulder researching marijuana use in adolescents and young adults. Then a 2009 cycling accident fractured my clavicle and multiple ribs, producing chronic pain, nausea, appetite loss, and severe sleep disruption that conventional treatments never fully resolved.
When Colorado's adult-use dispensaries opened in 2014, I tried medical cannabis—cannabis-infused gummies and transdermal patches. No one explained dosing. I applied a full patch, got far higher than intended, but slept through the night for the first time in years. The lesson was clear: cannabis is not a simple pill. Patients need education, evidence-based guidance, and providers willing to discuss it.
Through the Canna Research Foundation, which I founded, I study cannabis use patterns and provider-patient communication. In one of the first large studies of cannabis use among athletes, we found they used it not for competitive advantage but to manage pain, improve sleep, stimulate appetite, reduce anxiety, and aid recovery. A subsequent study among patients with rheumatologic conditions found many reported reduced suffering—a dimension standard clinical endpoints like pain scores and disease-activity measures often fail to capture.
Cannabis carries real risks: anxiety, dizziness, and problematic use occur in some people, and regulation and education matter. But rescheduling is not legalization—it does not move cannabis onto pharmacy shelves. What rescheduling and the new pilot program to allow cannabis access to Medicare patients acknowledge is that cannabis has medical uses and deserves serious study.
Current federal rules impose regulatory burdens on cannabis research that don't apply to most other substances, slowing answers on dosing, safety, drug interactions, and long-term outcomes. Patients pay out of pocket for cannabis while Medicaid often covers medications with heavier side-effect profiles. "Rescheduling will not answer every question overnight, but it will make it easier. It may also help pave the way for more rational healthcare policies." The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) pilot program creates an opening for that evidence and the clinical engagement needed to advance this field.
Dr. Joanna Zeiger, a U.S. Olympian and former Ironman 70.3 World Champion, is founder and CEO of the Canna Research Foundation and serves on the board of directors of the National Compassionate Care Council.