When President Donald Trump called for expedited rescheduling of medical marijuana in December 2025, he cited the need to boost scientific research on the drug as one of his primary motivations. With the move to Schedule III complete, will the desired outcome of that executive order take shape?
A new article co-authored by Robert Mikos, LaRoche Family Chair in Law at Vanderbilt Law School, argues that while rescheduling will help ease the path for research, the net effect will fall short of many people’s expectations.
Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, “Marijuana Rescheduling — A Game Changer for Research?” identifies the three key barriers that have historically hindered scientific research into marijuana’s potential therapeutic effects. The authors find that while the move to Schedule III could mitigate two of those barriers, it leaves the “most daunting” one—a lack of adequate research funding–unaddressed.
The authors explain that pharmaceutical firms are naturally reluctant to invest in research on products that are already widely available on the market through other vendors, like state-licensed marijuana suppliers. For this reason, research on marijuana typically must be funded by government. But government support for marijuana research has decreased in recent years. “Rescheduling can accomplish its primary purpose of generating clinically meaningful data only if the U.S. Congress and executive branch allocate more funding for doing that work,” the authors write. “Rescheduling does not provide that funding.”
While marijuana research provides a critical service – protecting public health at a time when marijuana products are more available and diversified – rigorous study cannot be achieved at current levels of funding. Until the lack of funding is addressed, the authors conclude, “consumers, clinicians, public health experts, and policymakers will be left without the rigorous research that is desperately needed to elucidate both the potential risks and therapeutic effects of medical marijuana.”
“Marijuana Rescheduling – A Game Changer for Research?” appears in volume 395 no. 8 of the New England Journal of Medicine. The article is co-authored by Rebecca L. Haffajee, Professor in the Practice of Public Health (Health Policy) at Yale School of Public Health; Robert Mikos, the LaRoche Family Chair in Law at Vanderbilt Law School; and Ziva D. Cooper, Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and the Director of the UCLA Center for Cannabis and Cannabinoids.