About this time last year (Feb 2024), I wrote an article in which I predicted that marijuana would be rescheduled by the end of 2024. I was wrong. So were a lot of other people. Will it be rescheduled in 2025? It is anyone’s guess at this point. All I know is that there is a very good reason to get rescheduling done sooner rather than later.
Do you have any guesses as to what that reason might be? If not, here it is: marijuana needs to be rescheduled so that we can start treating it like any other prescription medication. As long as it remains on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, states have very little control over how patients actually use it.
Recommendations, Not Prescriptions
In all but a few medical cannabis states, medicines derived from one of the world’s most famous intoxicating plants are not subject to any formal guidelines for use. The medicines certainly aren’t dispensed as traditional prescriptions, complete with labels directing patients and how and when to take the medicine’s. This creates a problem.
Without clear instructions, patients are left to figure out for themselves how to use medical cannabis. We don’t treat any prescription drug this way. Doing so would be foolish. But that is what we do with medical cannabis due to its status as a Schedule I controlled substance.
From the Patient’s Perspective
The current situation is not ideal from a patient’s perspective. Imagine you are a new medical cannabis user hoping to make your first purchase at the Beehive Farmacy in Salt Lake City, UT. You have a recommendation from your doctor, and you are urged to visit with the Beehive pharmacist to come up with a treatment plan.
The pharmacist is the most qualified person to recommend dosage and frequency – even more qualified than your doctor, by the way – but he or she still does not dispense medical cannabis with a formal prescription. You leave with a general recommendation and nothing more. In the end, you are left to come up with your own dose and frequency through trial and error.
Your natural tendency might be to go full throttle from day one. But that could lead to unintended consequences. On the other hand, your pharmacist is likely to recommend starting low and going slow. This is to say that you start with a very low dosage and limited frequency and then adjust from there. You would increase both dosage and frequency gradually until you find what works.
Still Too Much We Don’t Know
Medical cannabis patients, pharmacists, and doctors have made the current system work. Without any other choices, they have had to. But there is still too much about medical canvas we don’t know. We can only find the answers with more research. Guess what rescheduling does? It encourages more research.
As things currently stand, researchers can only legally obtain cannabis from the federal government. Getting their hands on it is not easy, and the quality of the product is never guaranteed. A lack of federal funding also puts the damper on research. But all this changes if marijuana is moved to Schedule III.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that the current system is not good for patients. It also inhibits research. Rescheduling marijuana would put it in the same classification as ketamine and anabolic steroids. It would still be highly regulated, but it would become available by prescription. That fact alone would encourage research. Doctors might also make a more concerted effort to learn about cannabis and its medical benefits. Patience would win in the end.