Another Spending Bill Makes Its Way Through Senate, Could Amplify Marijuana & Psychedelics Research

On July 27, the Senate’s appropriations committee approved a bill covering FY2024 funding for Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies with a section calling for the expansion of federal grants for research on marijuana and psychedelics, reported Marijuana Moment. 

The committee’s report on original S2624 expresses concern in that “restrictions associated with Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act effectively limits the amount and type of research that can be conducted on certain Schedule I drugs, especially opioids, psychedelics, marijuana or its component chemicals, and new synthetic drugs and analogs.”

The above concern links directly to a recent “viewpoint” opinion article (see fine breakdown by Josh Hardman) co-authored by National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) director Nora Volkow and National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) director Joshua Gordon and published by the American Medical Association (AMA) on the barriers to research following these compounds’ classification as Schedule I substances. 

These include “the challenges researchers face as a result of limited access to sources of marijuana, including dispensary products,” as stated in the report. 

The document further dispatches on the need for “as much information as possible” about them “for their harmful effects” but also acknowledging “the increased interest and need to study psychedelics, including MDMA, ketamine, and psilocybin, and their potential therapeutic effects.”

The committee thus advises that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) expand its current research agenda “across its institutes and centers” and collaborate with the FDA to develop public-private partnerships to advance “all forms of psychedelic research for therapeutic purposes.”

For cannabis, under the senators’ concerns that policies at both state and federal level are being made “without the benefit of scientific research to help guide those decisions” (including medical and recreational use) and yet also recognizing “the increased interest and need to study cannabis and its constituent cannabinoids,” the committee is encouraging NIH to expand studies into marijuana. 

This would include both “additional research on higher potency THC, alternative cannabis formulations and extracts, and additional minor cannabinoids” as well as “the potential medical uses of cannabis, such as for chronic pain, appetite stimulation, immune diseases, cancer, metabolic and digestive disorders, epilepsy, glaucoma, MS, sleep disorders, and a variety of mental health conditions such as anxiety and PTSD.” 

As noted by Marijuana Moment's Kyle Jaeger, senators will reconvene around the appropriations legislation along the rest of the chamber’s activities in September following this full-month’s recess.

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Photo Benzinga edit with photo by Cburnett on Wikimedia Commons and Octavio Hoyos on Shutterstock.