The conference talk, by Jacksonville State University master’s student Aquriya Muller, drew from published studies into marijuana among athletes and for pain management.

Notably, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) last year removed marijuana from its list of substances banned for Division I athletes, emphasizing that cannabis is not a performance enhancing drug and that it should be treated the same way as alcohol.

“Evidence indicates that marijuana use among athletes can improve oxygenation of tissues, reduce muscle spasm, and enhance pain management,” the new research paper says. “For patients with fibromyalgia, marijuana use displayed benefits in alleviating symptoms such as pain and stiffness, while enhancing relaxation and sleep.”

It further found that “marijuana’s anti-inflammatory properties also contribute to recovery and post-exercise treatment.”

Her presentation pointed to the example of a Division I basketball player who used marijuana to treat muscle spasms and pain as well as improve sleep.

Muller’s report encourages trainers and care providers to stay up-to-date on relevant findings and work to incorporate alternative and conventional treatments.

In all, the report reviewed 94 total articles, though it excluded 90 of those for not meeting the study criteria.

And while Muller noted the positive apparent benefits of marijuana, she identified a need for further research. The bulk of the studies, she noted, had a “lower level of evidence” and were “less reliable” overall.

“Despite these findings, effectiveness varies among individual athletes,” her report says. “In addition, concerns about behavioral health and performance are limited.”

“Athletic trainers and healthcare providers should remain informed about evolving policies and evidence to provide tailored, evidence-based care to their athletes and patients,” it continues. “This knowledge supports developing treatment plans for athletes that incorporate alternative and traditional pain management methods.”

Last year’s NCAA vote to remove marijuana as a banned substance built on a 2022 change that increased the allowable THC threshold for college athletes, a change meant to align NCAA’s rules with those of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Historically, college athletes have been subject to testing during postseason play. Positive tests could mean an entire season of lost eligibility. Officials have said the changes are intended to focus more on problematic use than penalizing players for a single mistake.

“The NCAA drug testing program is intended to focus on integrity of competition, and cannabis products do not provide a competitive advantage,” Josh Whitman, chair of NCAA’s Division I council, said last year. “The council’s focus is on policies centered on student-athlete health and well-being rather than punishment for cannabis use.”

When an NCAA committee formally recommending the policy shift in September 2023, it said ending the cannabis ban “acknowledges the ineffectiveness of existing policy (banning, testing and penalizing),” affirms the body’s belief that cannabis is not a “performance-enhancing drug” and promotes the “importance of moving toward a harm-reduction strategy.”

“The timing of discussion and adoption of possible legislation is a decision that will be made by each of three NCAA divisional governance structures,” the panel said. “This recommendation is based on extensive study informed by industry and subject matter experts (including doctors, substance misuse experts and membership practitioners).”

Multiple sports organizations have moved to amend their marijuana testing policies for athletes amid the state legalization movement.

For example, the NFL and its players union agreed to end the practice of suspending players over marijuana or other drugs as part of a collective bargaining agreement in 2020.

Late last year, NFL also reached an agreement with its players union to further reform its marijuana policies, significantly reducing fines for positive tests while increasing the allowable THC threshold for players.

NFL has committed significant funding to research into whether CBD can serve as an effective opioid alternative, and it’s also explored the therapeutic potential of the non-intoxicating cannabinoid for pain management and neuroprotection from concussions.

The league announced early last year that it was partnering with Canadian researchers on a clinical trial to test the safety and efficacy of CBD for pain management and neuroprotection from concussions—key issues for many football players who experience injuries as part of the game.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) announced in late 2023 that it was formally removing marijuana from its newly modified banned substances list for athletes, also building on an earlier reform.

However, ahead of a UFC event last year, a California athletics commission said they could still face penalties under state rules for testing positive for THC over a certain limit, as the state body’s policy is based around WADA guidance. UFC subsequently notified participants that the reform didn’t apply under California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) rules.

Nevada sports regulators voted in 2023 to send a proposed regulatory amendment to the governor that would protect athletes from being penalized over using or possessing marijuana in compliance with state law. Last October, regulators officially adopted the rule change.

While advocates have welcomed these changes, there’s been criticism of WADA over its ongoing cannabis ban. Members of a panel within the agency said in a 2023 opinion piece that marijuana use by athletes violates the “spirit of sport,” making them unfit role models whose potential impairment could put others at risk.

Advocates strongly urged WADA to enact a reform after U.S. runner Sha’Carri Richardson was suspended from participating in Olympics events due to a positive THC test in 2021.

Following that suspension, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) said that the international rules on marijuana “must change,” the White House and then-President Joe Biden himself signaled that it was time for new policies and congressional lawmakers amplified that message.

Last June, meanwhile, an NFL player sued the league and his former team, the Denver Broncos, for alleged employment discrimination after he was fined more than half a million dollars for testing positive for THC that he says was caused by his prescribed use of a synthetic cannabinoid. NFL and the Denver Broncos in asked a federal court to reject the suit.

Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty last year entered into partnerships with a CBD beverage company—the first teams in the NBA and WNBA, respectively, to forge deals with the cannabis industry.

The New York-based clubs partnered with Mynd Drinks, a hemp-based CBD sparkling beverage company that also made history in 2023 when it became an official partner of the Major League Baseball (MLB) team the Chicago Cubs.

As for marijuana and pain, a study earlier this year found that cannabis and its constituent cannabinoids could be useful treatments for various types of chronic pain, in some cases helping to reduce the use of other medications. The paper also said select mixtures of cannabinoids could help minimize undesirable effects of cannabis, such as the psychoactivity of THC.

That is among a flurry of research in recent years into the use of cannabis to treat chronic pain, which is one of the most common qualifying conditions among patients in many states with medical marijuana programs.

Research published earlier this year in the journal Pain, for example, found that marijuana was “comparatively more effective than prescription medications” for treating chronic pain after a three-month period, and that many patients reduced their use of opioid painkillers while using cannabis.

The analysis “was able to determine, using causal inference techniques, that use of medical marijuana for chronic pain under medical supervision is at least as effective and potentially more effective in relationship to patients with chronic pain treated by prescription medications (nonopioid or opioid),” said the report, by authors at the University of Pittsburgh, Harvard Medical School and the National Cancer Institute.

A separate federally funded study found that legalization of marijuana in U.S. states is associated with reduced prescriptions for opioid pain medications among commercially insured adults—indicating a possible substitution effect where patients are choosing to use cannabis instead of prescription drugs to treat pain.

“These results suggest that substitution of cannabis for traditional pain medications increases as the availability of recreational cannabis increases,” authors of that report wrote, noting that there “appears to be a small shift once recreational cannabis becomes legal, but we see stronger results once users can purchase cannabis at recreational dispensaries.”

“Reductions in opioid prescription fills stemming from recreational cannabis legalization may prevent exposure to opioids in patients with pain,” the paper, published in the journal Cannabis, continues, “and lead to decreases in the number of new opioid users, rates of opioid use disorder, and related harms.”

Other recent research also showed a decline in fatal opioid overdoses in jurisdictions where marijuana was legalized for adults. That study found a “consistent negative relationship” between legalization and fatal overdoses, with more significant effects in states that legalized cannabis earlier in the opioid crisis. Authors estimated that recreational marijuana legalization “is associated with a decrease of approximately 3.5 deaths per 100,000 individuals.”

“Our findings suggest that broadening recreational marijuana access could help address the opioid epidemic,” that report said. “Previous research largely indicates that marijuana (primarily for medical use) can reduce opioid prescriptions, and we find it may also successfully reduce overdose deaths.”

“Further, this effect increases with earlier implementation of [recreational marijuana legalization],” it added, “indicating this relationship is relatively consistent over time.”

Another recently published report into prescription opioid use in Utah following the state’s legalization of medical marijuana found that the availability of legal cannabis both reduced opioid use by patients with chronic pain and helped drive down prescription overdose deaths statewide. Overall, results of the study indicated that “cannabis has a substantial role to play in pain management and the reduction of opioid use,” it said.

Yet another study, published in 2023, linked medical marijuana use to lower pain levels and reduced dependence on opioids and other prescription medications. And another, published by the American Medical Association (AMA) last February, found that chronic pain patients who received medical marijuana for longer than a month saw significant reductions in prescribed opioids.

Separate research published found that more than half (57 percent) of patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain said cannabis was more effective than other analgesic medications, while 40 percent reported reducing their use of other painkillers since they began using marijuana.

In Minnesota, meanwhile, a state government report this year on chronic pain patients enrolled in the state’s medical marijuana program said recently that participants “are finding a noticeable change in pain relief” within a few months of starting cannabis treatment.

The large-scale study of nearly 10,000 patients also shows that nearly a quarter who were taking other pain relievers reduced the use of those drugs after using medical marijuana.

Another new study on the use of medical marijuana by older patients—age 50 and above—concluded that “cannabis seemed to be a safe and effective treatment” for pain and other conditions.

Oprah Highlights Cultural ‘Shift’ Around Psychedelics—But Worries About ‘Losing My Mind’ If She Experimented

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Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) gave final approval to the bills from Sen. Michelle Hinchey (D) and Assemblymember Donna Lupardo (D) on Thursday.

New York initially authorized cannabis farmers market events in 2023, aiming to expedite consumers access as traditional retailers were being approved and help producers bring their products directly to market. Last December, Hochul separately signed legislation to revive the program after it sunsetted in January 2024.

The newly enacted measures will expand the law. For example, they amend statute by making it so licensed retailers would need to partner with a “minimum” of one cultivator and one processor for the showcase events, whereas previously the law indicated that they were limited to only one partnership for each of those licensing categories.

Showcase permittees will also now be mandated to sell products cultivated or processed by those partnering licensees at the events, though the bills make clear they could also sell other products.

Further, the legislation states that each retail licensee participating in a farmers market event must received a permit if there are multiple retailers operating at the same event. And each of those permittees would be required to meet the minimum partnership requirement with at least one cultivator and processor.

The bills take effect 120 days after enactment.

The farmers market events as originally authorized were largely responsive to the slow roll-out of New York’s adult-use marijuana program, which faced multiple delays in implementation amid litigation. But the state’s industry has gradually expanded, with officials in January touting $1 billion in total sales since the market launched.

Regulators have said that the significant uptick in licensing approvals has been coupled a successful crackdown on unlicensed shops, which proliferated in the early month of legalization being enacted.

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Marijuana Moment is tracking hundreds of cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.

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Meanwhile, state officials recently launched a grant program that will award up to $30,000 apiece to retail marijuana businesses to help cover startup costs.

Also, earlier this year, a collective of businesses licensed under the CAURD program called on Hochul to forgive tens of millions of dollars in high-cost loans issued under a governor-created social equity loan fund.

Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes (D) said in December that there’s a need to extend financial aid to CAURD license holders, many of whom are struggling under the high-cost loans.

Critics—including the NAACP New York State Conference, Black Cannabis Industry Association, Minority Cannabis Business Association, Service Disabled Veterans in Cannabis Association, Drug Policy Alliance, NYC NORML and VOCAL-NY—wrote to the governor earlier that month to express dismay at what they described as marijuana regulators’ “efforts in service of big corporations at the expense of small business and equity outcomes.”

The advocates said at the time that since the departure of the state’s first chief cannabis regulator, Chris Alexander, last may May, state officials had demonstrated a “shift toward corporate interests at the expense of small business, justice-involved entrepreneurs, and Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary (CAURD) licensees who are directly impacted by prior marijuana arrest.”

Last month, regulators also launched a new resource meant to connect licensed marijuana businesses with banks that are willing to work with the industry, even as federal prohibition continues to pose barriers to financial services.

In 2023, the governor signed legislation that aims to make it slightly easier for financial institutions to work with state-licensed cannabis clients.

The law authorized OCM to provide financial institutions with information about marijuana business licensees or applicants, which is meant to ease compliance with reporting requirements. Licensees and applicants would first have to consent to information being shared.

A recent budget proposal from Hochul aims to empower police who claim to smell marijuana to force a driver to take a drug test—a plan that’s drawing pushback not just from reform advocates but also from the state’s Assembly majority leader and the governor-appointed head of OCM.

Meanwhile in New York, the state Senate earlier this month approved a bill to expand housing protections for registered medical marijuana patients, aiming to prevent evictions based solely on their lawful use of cannabis.

Senators this session have also introduced a bill for the 2025 session to broadly decriminalize drug possession.

Several psychedelics bills have also been filed in New York—including one calling for the legalization of certain entheogenic substances such as psilocybin and ibogaine for adults 21 and older.

The governor argued in June, meanwhile, that there’s a direct correlation between stepped-up enforcement and “dramatically” increased legal sales. A report by state officials last year found both “growing pains” and “successful efforts” in New York’s marijuana market launch.

Three In Four Marijuana Consumers Say They Trust That Products From Licensed Retailers Are Free Of Contaminants, Poll Finds

Photo courtesy of California State Fair.

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After clearing the House in January, the Senate advanced the measure from Reps. Anthony Hartsook (R) and Kyle Brown (D), as well as Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet (D), in a 25-9 vote this month. It now heads to the governor’s desk.

Similar to legislation that Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed into law in 2022 regarding the medical dispensing and use of MDMA, the bipartisan bill would empower doctors to prescribe drugs containing crystalline polymorph psilocybin, pending federal reform.

Colorado already legalized psilocybin and several other psychedelics for adults 21 and older through a voter-approved ballot initiative, but the newly legislature-approved reform would make it so drugs containing an isolated crystalized version synthesized from psilocybin could become available under physician prescription.

The bill’s findings section states that treatment-resistant depression is a major public health crisis, and psilocybin has been shown in clinical trials to “reduce depression scores significantly for patients with treatment-resistant depression when compared to active placebos.”

“Therefore, the general assembly declares that it is in the best interests of the people of Colorado that behavioral health professionals in Colorado have the ability to provide crystalline polymorph psilocybin to treat patients with treatment-resistant depression if the federal [Food and Drug Administration, or FDA] ultimately approves it for prescription use,” it says.

Psilocybin would still be listed as a controlled substance under state statute—with the nuance that state law permits adults to cultivate and possess certain amounts of the raw mushroom. But this bill would create an additional carve out exempting crystalline polymorph psilocybin from the definition of the psychedelic.

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Marijuana Moment is tracking hundreds of cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.

Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on Patreon to get access.
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As of January, meanwhile, Colorado regulars have been authorized to approve licenses for psilocybin service centers where adults can access the psychedelic in controlled settings.

The governor signed a bill to create the regulatory framework for legal psychedelics in 2023.

But lawmakers evidently are interested in setting the state up to allow for a more conventional system of distribution for certain psychedelics. In 2022, Polis also signed a bill to align state statute to legalize MDMA prescriptions if and when the federal government ultimately permits such use.

Whether FDA moves forward with any such approvals in uncertain, and the agency faced criticism last year after rejecting an application to allow MDMA-assisted therapy for people with PTSD.

Meanwhile in Colorado, a bill that would have limited THC in marijuana and outlawed a variety of psilocybin products will no longer move forward this session following the lead sponsor’s move to withdraw the bill.

New York Governor Signs Bills To Expand State’s Marijuana Farmers Market Program With ‘Pop-Up’ Events

Photo courtesy of Dick Culbert.

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Most of them say they use cannabis to deal with pain, mobility and sleep issues, while substantial numbers of veterans also say it helps with PTSD, anxiety and stress. Nearly all participants (98 percent) said healthcare providers should discuss the use of natural products with their patients.

The report, published in the journal Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health, says the survey “revealed prevalent use of multiple NPs [natural products] concurrently, and in some cases, as substitutes for prescribed medications.”

Cannabis—including both CBD- and THC-dominant varieties—was the third most common natural product in the survey after vitamin D and multivitamins, the study found.

“Of the 21 (40%) reporting using cannabis products for all indications, most reported using products that had a mix of cannabidiol (CBD, without the psychoactive component) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, the psychoactive component in cannabis),” the report says. “Indications for cannabis among those reporting use were pain or mobility (81%), sleep (62%), PTSD or anxiety (43%), stress (43%), and depression (29%).”

The sample size for the new report was relatively small. Authors described the survey as “piloted among 52 veterans with chronic pain enrolled in Veterans Health Administration (VA) primary care.” It was supported in part from the Office of Dietary Supplements and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, which are both parts of the National Institutes of Health.

Authors from the University of California, San Francisco, and Yale University noted that the percentage of respondents reporting cannabis use “may represent under-reporting related to the prohibition on cannabis prescribing in the VA as a federal health care system.”

Notably, only about half of respondents overall said they’d discussed natural product use with their healthcare providers. Authors noted, however, that “clinicians and pharmacists generally lack knowledge about NPs, which explains why they may avoid discussions about NPs with their patients.”

The research team also noted that although most natural products are “generally considered safe, some may be mislabeled, contain adulterants, have side-effects or drug/NP interactions, especially in patients (or veterans) with comorbidities prescribed multiple medications.”

The study, which was first noted by the advocacy group NORML, comes amid ongoing efforts by activists and stakeholders to protect veterans’ access to marijuana.

At a joint hearing earlier this month, for example, two veterans service organizations submitted testimony voicing support for expanded access to plant-based medicines, including marijuana and psychedelics.

“Currently,” said Allison Jaslow, CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), “veterans who live in states where cannabis has been legalized completely are unable to even be prescribed cannabis for medicinal purposes by their doctor” at the VA.

Jaslow said IAVA is “looking forward” to the reintroduction of a bipartisan bill—the Marijuana Safe Harbor Act—that would temporarily allow veterans to legally possess and use cannabis under federal law, as recommended by doctors in accordance with state law. VA physicians would also be allowed for the first time to issue such recommendations.

Aside from that legislation, there have been veterans-focused cannabis measures already filed in the 119th Congress. That includes a bill sponsored by Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, whose Veterans Equal Access Act would similarly allow VA doctors to recommend medical marijuana to their patients in states where it’s legal.

Other VSOs also addressed marijuana and psychedelics policy with the bicameral committees at previous hearings last month, urging lawmakers to continue to explore the alternative therapeutic options and expedite access if they’re proven to be efficacious.

Research published in 2023 found that more than 90 percent of U.S. military veterans who use medical marijuana reported that it improved their quality of life, with many using cannabis as an alternative to over-the-counter and prescription medications.

In July of last year, a Senate committee urged the VA to explore medical marijuana as an alternative to opioids for veterans, also asking the agency to consider allowing its doctors to formally recommend cannabis to their patients.

As for marijuana and chronic pain, a recently published scientific review concluded that cannabinoids may be useful treatments for various types of chronic pain, in some cases helping to reduce the use of other medications. The paper also said select mixtures of cannabinoids could help minimize undesirable effects of cannabis, such as the psychoactivity of THC.

Published last month in the journal Medical Cannabis and Cannabinoids and authored by researchers at Penn State College of Medicine, that paper reviewed “the most recent evidence supporting the use of cannabis in the treatment of chronic pain disorders including chronic neuropathic pain, cancer-induced neuropathic pain, chronic musculoskeletal pain, and chronic headaches and migraines.”

Research published earlier this year in the journal Pain also found that marijuana was “comparatively more effective than prescription medications” for treating chronic pain after a three-month period, and that many patients reduced their use of opioid painkillers while using cannabis.

The analysis “was able to determine, using causal inference techniques, that use of medical marijuana for chronic pain under medical supervision is at least as effective and potentially more effective in relationship to patients with chronic pain treated by prescription medications (nonopioid or opioid),” said the report, by authors at the University of Pittsburgh, Harvard Medical School and the National Cancer Institute.

A separate federally funded study found that legalization of marijuana in U.S. states is associated with reduced prescriptions for opioid pain medications among commercially insured adults—indicating a possible substitution effect where patients are choosing to use cannabis instead of prescription drugs to treat pain.

“These results suggest that substitution of cannabis for traditional pain medications increases as the availability of recreational cannabis increases,” authors of that report wrote, noting that there “appears to be a small shift once recreational cannabis becomes legal, but we see stronger results once users can purchase cannabis at recreational dispensaries.”

Other recent research also showed a decline in fatal opioid overdoses in jurisdictions where marijuana was legalized for adults. That study found a “consistent negative relationship” between legalization and fatal overdoses, with more significant effects in states that legalized cannabis earlier in the opioid crisis. Authors estimated that recreational marijuana legalization “is associated with a decrease of approximately 3.5 deaths per 100,000 individuals.”

Another recently published report into prescription opioid use in Utah following the state’s legalization of medical marijuana found that the availability of legal cannabis both reduced opioid use by patients with chronic pain and helped drive down prescription overdose deaths statewide. Overall, results of the study indicated that “cannabis has a substantial role to play in pain management and the reduction of opioid use,” it said.

Yet another study, published in 2023, linked medical marijuana use to lower pain levels and reduced dependence on opioids and other prescription medications. And another, published by the American Medical Association (AMA) last February, found that chronic pain patients who received medical marijuana for longer than a month saw significant reductions in prescribed opioids.

About one in three chronic pain patients reported using cannabis as a treatment option, according to a 2023 AMA-published report. Most of that group said they used cannabis as a substitute for other pain medications, including opioids.

Other research published that year found that letting people buy CBD legally significantly reduced opioid prescription rates, leading to 6.6 percent to 8.1 percent fewer opioid prescriptions.

A 2022 research paper that analyzed Medicaid data on prescription drugs, meanwhile, found that legalizing marijuana for adult use was associated with “significant reductions” in the use of prescription drugs for the treatment of multiple conditions.

A 2023 report linked state-level medical marijuana legalization to reduced opioid payouts to doctors—another datapoint suggesting that patients use cannabis as an alternative to prescription drugs when given legal access.

Researchers in another study, published last year, looked at opioid prescription and mortality rates in Oregon, finding that nearby access to retail marijuana moderately reduced opioid prescriptions, though they observed no corresponding drop in opioid-related deaths.

Other recent research also indicates that cannabis may be an effective substitute for opioids in terms of pain management.

A report published recently in the journal BMJ Open, for instance, compared medical marijuana and opioids for chronic non-cancer pain and found that cannabis “may be similarly effective and result in fewer discontinuations than opioids,” potentially offering comparable relief with a lower likelihood of adverse effects.

Separate research published found that more than half (57 percent) of patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain said cannabis was more effective than other analgesic medications, while 40 percent reported reducing their use of other painkillers since they began using marijuana.

In Minnesota, meanwhile, a state government report this year on chronic pain patients enrolled in the state’s medical marijuana program said recently that participants “are finding a noticeable change in pain relief” within a few months of starting cannabis treatment.

The large-scale study of nearly 10,000 patients also shows that nearly a quarter who were taking other pain relievers reduced the use of those drugs after using medical marijuana.

Another new study on the use of medical marijuana by older patients—age 50 and above—concluded that “cannabis seemed to be a safe and effective treatment” for pain and other conditions.

Medical Marijuana Is ‘A Cost-Effective Adjunctive Therapy’ For PTSD, New Study Shows

Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.

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