The Journal of Cannabis Research has grown from a new launch in 2018 into an established, highly valued and trusted source of information for cannabis researchers and other scientists. The Journal is led by David Gorelick, MD, PhD (University of Maryland Baltimore, USA), who championed an inter-disciplinary and international approach from the outset. He is supported by a distinguished international Editorial Board that spans the breadth of cannabis science.

As the Journal enters its 7^th year, I ask David about his time in academia, the history of research into the cannabis plant and the state of knowledge in 2025, plus why a multi-disciplinary approach is the only way when it comes to cannabis.

Describe your background in the field of substance use, both as researcher and physician, plus what led you to pivot to cannabis research specifically.

My career goal was to become a physician-scientist, i.e., to both care for patients as a clinician and to conduct research that would improve their care. That is why I earned both a medical degree and a doctoral degree in pharmacology in medical school. As a psychiatry resident during the late 1970’s, I cared for patients with diverse psychiatric disorders. Many of them also had problems with psychoactive substance use, but these problems were largely ignored by other clinicians. To compound this neglect, there was very little research being conducted on substance use disorders. These factors convinced me that a career as an addiction psychiatrist would be a productive way to achieve my goal.

My four-decade career in addiction psychiatry has been very satisfying. For the first decade, I focused largely on patient care, running inpatient and outpatient hospital-based treatment programs, while conducting clinical research on the side. Then I took a position at the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This allowed me to focus on conducting clinical research on substance use disorders.

During my last several years at NIDA, much of my research dealt with cannabis. This reflected the growing interest in cannabis at the clinical, public health, and public policy levels in the US, driven in part by expanding legalization at the state level. Since retiring from NIDA over a decade ago, I have worked part-time at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. My focus has shifted to public health and public policy issues surrounding cannabis legalization. My home state of Maryland legalized medical cannabis in 2015 and recreational cannabis (often called “adult use”) in 2022. I wanted to contribute to an evidence-based discussion of how legalization should be implemented. My hope was that legalization could be implemented in a way that minimized the potential public health harms from cannabis use. One way I achieve this is by serving on the Maryland Cannabis Public Health Advisory Council. As its name implies, the Council advises the Maryland Department of Health and the state legislature on public health aspects of cannabis use.

How have perceptions of, and engagement with, cannabis as a pharmaceutical changed over your career?

When I was in training during the 1970’s, the prevailing public view, reinforced by government pronouncements, was that cannabis (or marijuana as it was called then) was just another dangerous and illegal psychoactive drug like cocaine, heroin, and psychedelics. There was still some carryover from US government public health warnings of the 1930’s and 40’s, which described cannabis use as associated with psychosis (“reefer madness”) and violent behavior. Even if not acutely harmful, cannabis was considered a 'soft' drug whose use could be a gateway to more harmful 'hard' drugs. Of course, there was always a small subculture that didn’t believe this and used cannabis recreationally.

This view of cannabis has changed substantially over the past three decades for two reasons: growing evidence that cannabis use may have some health benefits and that use, in moderation, may not be as harmful as previously thought.

Starting in the 1990’s, clinical research (much of it done outside the US) began suggesting possible health benefits from cannabis use. This evidence prompted individual US states to legalize cannabis use for medical purposes. Cannabis remained illegal at the national (federal) level and remains so to this day. A turning point came in 2017, when the US National Institute of Medicine issued a comprehensive report on the health effects of cannabis. This report found that there was credible evidence that cannabis was beneficial for a few medical conditions, particularly chronic or neuropathic pain and certain childhood seizure disorders. More recent research suggests therapeutic potential for other conditions, although few have been confirmed yet by randomized controlled clinical trials. Such trials are the gold standard for proving efficacy and are required for the approval of a new medication by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

At the same time, large, population-based epidemiological surveys found that cannabis use was not as harmful as previously suggested. The risk of developing a cannabis use disorder (or addiction) is largely confined to those who use cannabis daily, especially if use begins during adolescence and involves high-potency cannabis (potency is defined based on THC content). The risk of developing cannabis-induced psychosis (“reefer madness”) is largely confined to those with a predilection for psychosis who use high-potency cannabis. Prospective longitudinal studies generally find that cannabis is not a gateway drug. Rather, individuals who use cannabis are also likely to use other psychoactive substances (especially nicotine) because of pre-existing factors.

In light of this mounting evidence, the current view of cannabis is much more nuanced. Most experts, myself included, believe there is enormous therapeutic potential in the cannabis plant and its individual cannabinoids; potential which could be unlocked by rigorous research. We also recognize that cannabis use poses specific harms to some individuals who use it; more research is needed to identify these vulnerable populations.

Are there any roadblocks to advancing cannabis research that you think policymakers should be mindful of?

In the US, a specific roadblock to cannabis research is the placement of cannabis and cannabinoids in schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. This placement legally classifies cannabis as having no legitimate medical use in the US and makes it very difficult to conduct any research with it. Even if cannabis were legalized at the US federal level, descheduling (as happened with cannabidiol) would also be needed to fully unburden research. Some other countries do not have such restrictive legal frameworks. This is why many therapeutic clinical trials involving cannabis are being conducted in Israel, Brazil, and elsewhere, rather than in the US.

The structure of the medical cannabis industry in the US also limits clinical research. States that have legalized medical cannabis do not require proof of efficacy, safety, or appropriate dosage levels in order to sell medical cannabis products. Therefore, companies have no incentive to spend funds on clinical trials, which can cost millions of dollars each to conduct. In contrast, federal law requires two large controlled clinical trials that demonstrate efficacy and safety before the FDA can approve a new medication for sale.

Why is the inter-disciplinary approach so important for cannabis and how does this manifest in journal work?

Issues related to cannabis tend to have multiple, inter-related aspects. Thus, comprehensive understanding of an issue often requires knowledge of diverse areas of science, economics, and public health. For example, evaluating the best approach to regulating a state-level cannabis market requires knowledge at several multi-disciplinary levels: the agronomy of cultivating the cannabis plant, analytical chemistry to quantify the cannabinoids contained in the plant, epidemiological data on the cannabis market, and evidence of the public health harms of cannabis use and the best methods to mitigate them. The Institute of Cannabis Research at Colorado State University Pueblo, which sponsors the journal, enthusiastically supports this approach. We agreed from the start to have the Journal of Cannabis Research be truly multi-disciplinary.  We publish articles not only in standard biomedical sciences, but also agronomy and plant science, public health and epidemiology, economics, law, and history. I.e., literally anything related to cannabis.

To maintain a high quality of articles, we recruited a large, international Editorial Board of experts in all these topics. This was understandably difficult at the beginning, when the journal did not yet have a  track record of excellence. I was helped in this task by some senior scientists, who recognized the need for a multi-disciplinary journal covering the entire cannabis field. Most prominent among them was the late Dr. Raphael Mechoulam of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Dr. Mechoulam, an organic chemist by training,  is considered the father of modern cannabinoid research. He graciously agreed to join our Editorial Board, which helped give the journal early credibility.

What advice would you give to researchers looking to move into cannabis and what research questions can be explored in countries with limited legality.

I believe that researchers from any discipline or field of science can have a productive career working in the cannabis field. From whatever aspect one approaches the topic of cannabis, there is the opportunity to advance knowledge of potential therapeutic compounds or help society deal with important public health and public policy issues. I believe that many researchers, like myself, will find it very satisfying to engage in rigorous scholarly work while also helping others and society at large.

I acknowledge that research involving direct use of cannabis or cannabinoids is more difficult in the US because of current legal restrictions, as I have previously mentioned. Workarounds are possible for some types of studies, even for clinical trials, and I am optimistic for the future. The previous US federal administration recommended rescheduling cannabis from schedule I (the most restrictive) to schedule III, which would make it less cumbersome for researchers to work with cannabis. This regulatory process is currently on hold...but I hope that it will eventually succeed.

Lastly, any shameless plugs you’d like to make?

I welcome all researchers, from any discipline to submit their best work for publication in the Journal of Cannabis Research. Of course, I cannot promise acceptance: all manuscripts undergo rigorous external peer review, as well as review by a member of our Editorial Board. I can promise that, if your manuscript is accepted for publication, it will appear in the leading international, multi-disciplinary cannabis journal and in the company of many other high-quality articles. Because the Journal of Cannabis Research is entirely open access and included in all the major electronic indexing services, your article will accessible to readers throughout the world, academia and general public alike.

Click to apply to our Editorial Board and work with David directly!