SALT LAKE CITY — While many Utahns, as well as people around the country, are optimistic about the executive order to reclassify marijuana, how do medical researchers feel about the move?
"It takes [marijuana] from kind of a space that wasn't in line with what the FDA was doing. Now, much more in this line of, OK, we have a health condition, we can pick a product, or we can develop a product that we believe will specifically help that condition," explained Professor Jerry Cochran, Director of Addiction Research at the Eccles School of Medicine.
Cochran added they'll now be able to create mechanisms of delivery for marijuana, figure out dosing and many other things, such as PTSD, chronic pain, seizures, and many other conditions. He added that the reclassification will increase the amount of money available for research on marijuana.
Utahns optimistic after Trump signs executive order reclassifying marijuana:
"The National Institute of Health is the largest funder of biomedical research in the world. This creates pathways for them to open up grant mechanisms that just aren't around abuse and things like that," Cochran said. "Now we're going to talk about therapeutic use. So we have very large-scale grants that are going to be available to Utah researchers to be able to go after those to really develop medications. That will be a significant funding stream as well for the university and going after those kinds of resources."
Cochran says the order will also affect the lingering stigma surrounding marijuana, in that doctors who have been hesitant to prescribe it for various conditions will probably be more willing to do so now.
