A new study on government-funded marijuana research in states that have enacted legalization says that the ongoing federal classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug makes some states too “risk averse” to dedicate resources to cannabis science or leaves them “unsure how to navigate complicated federal requirements imposed on research.”
Overall, the paper finds that “17 out of 38 states that have passed either medical or adult use laws have legislation that specify a funding mechanism for cannabis research” and that “of the 17 states that have legislation directing funding to research, only 12 have allocated funding to date.”
“States have much to gain from scientific advancements in the cannabis field, especially as they navigate a preponderance of public policy issues without a federal structure to lean upon,” says the report, published this month in the Journal of Cannabis Research. “However, with less than half of states that have legalized cannabis use in some form providing funding for research, there is a missed opportunity for states to increase understanding of the risks and benefits of cannabis use within their state.”
Authors added that overall, there’s “a need for more states to consider adopting mechanisms to support cannabis research” in order to understand the risks and benefits of both legalization and cannabis itself.
“Researchers have identified the lack of sufficient research funding as the top barrier in the cannabis field,” the team wrote. “In August 2022, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released a Request for Information (RFI) seeking input from the scientific community on barriers to performing cannabis research. In 2024, NIH reported that response data on the 2022 RFI showed increased funding opportunities as the highest need in the field.”
The 17 states with legislation directing funding to research represent about 45 percent of the 38 states that have legalized marijuana some form. The proportion is slightly higher among adult-use states, of which 46 percent (11 of 24) states put money toward cannabis research. Of 14 states that have legalized marijuana solely for medical use, six (43 percent) direct funds to research.
States with some form of legal marijuana that have adopted mechanisms to fund cannabis research but not yet allocated money include Alabama, Maine, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia, the researchers found.
The team’s analysis excluded laws at the municipal level as well as in U.S. territories and Washington, D.C.
The new study was authored by the director of research policy analysis and coordination at the University of California Office of the President, an independent health policy researcher in Minneapolis and the then-executive director of the Cannabis Policy Lab in Sacramento.
As for how much money states commit to cannabis research, the study says amounts vary “significantly.” It notes that states typically provide money either directly to academic institutions or to state agencies.
In the former category, the study points to $1.5 million in funding to university study of medical marijuana clinical outcomes in Florida, $2 million from the Kentucky state government to the University of Kentucky, $2.5 million from Minnesota lawmakers to the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and $650,000 in Utah to establish the University of Utah’s Center for Medical Cannabis Research.
In Washington State, cannabis laws direct 1 percent of total excise tax revenue from legal marijuana to fund research at the University of Washington and Washington State University, it adds.
As for funding through state agencies, meanwhile, examples include Arizona, which moved to fund cannabis research through the state Department of Health Services’s Arizona Biomedical Research Centre (ABRC), as well as Illinois, which earmarked 2 percent of tax revenue for the Illinois Department of Human Services to carry out research.
Michigan’s legalization law provided that state’s Cannabis Regulatory Agency with $20 million annually for research into marijuana and veterans, the report adds, while New York supports research through its Office of Cannabis Management.
California takes both approaches, funding research both through direct university grants and state agencies. Proposition 64, for example, which legalized cannabis in the state, “allocated $2 million annually to University of California San Diego’s Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research along with $10 million annually for a 10-year period to public universities in California as selected by the Department of Cannabis Control (DCC),” the report says.
DCC, for its part, has allocated “nearly $50 million to universities across the state for research projects on a range of topics relevant to public policy, including public health, criminal justice, public safety, economic impacts, environmental impact, and the effect of legalization on the cannabis industry.”
Federal money makes up the bulk of support for marijuana research, the study notes, and funding “has increased tenfold over the last two decades as government agencies at every level have grappled with difficult decisions about criminal law, product safety, and public health.”
“Unfortunately, funding for cannabis research has not kept pace with the adoption of legalization,” it adds, pointing out that as of 2021, federal funding for cannabis research “was still 35% lower than for alcohol-related research and nearly 40% lower than for tobacco-related research.”
The disparity in funding, as well as the federal government’s general hands-off approach toward legal marijuana, means that “states have a unique opportunity to add to the scientific knowledge about cannabis,” the study says, “especially as they continue to form laws and regulations around cannabis products.”
The role of states in supporting marijuana research may become even more important in the coming months and years as the Trump administration seeks to broadly cut federal spending, including support for scientific research. For example, the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) recently touted its cancellation of federal grant funding for a study examining cannabis use risks among LGBTQ+ individuals, non-binary people and heterosexual women.
Meanwhile, researchers behind the new study also identified what they described as “a missed opportunity for researchers and cannabis regulators to collaborate on informing policy options and developing future evidence-informed cannabis regulations.”
“Several states have been intentional in their efforts to incorporate research into policymaking efforts,” the report says. “For example, California and Colorado have identified specific policy knowledge needs over time and included such needs in recent funding opportunities for academic institutions. However, most states have not invested in research as a function of their cannabis legislation.”
The research team said there are “many reasons” states may not have chosen to invest in cannabis research. A leading obstacle could be federal prohibition.
“The current Schedule I designation under federal law is a significant challenge in the conduct of research,” authors wrote, “especially because the Schedule I classification prohibits researchers from working directly with cannabis sold in state sanctioned markets. This has likely had the effect of leaving states risk averse to research funding or unsure how to navigate complicated federal requirements imposed on research.”
Research spending in Minnesota and Utah, they continued, should “serve as encouragement for other states to adopt a cannabis research funding policy.”
“States that are interested in funding cannabis research could draw funds from cannabis-specific tax revenues, either in fixed annual amounts or at a specified percent of revenues collected,” the report advises. Fixed amounts would be more reliable, while percentages of tax revenues would make for more variable funding but potentially make more money available in years sales are higher.
Additional, non-monetary ways that states can support cannabis research, the study explains, would be to share regulatory market data with researchers or to embed researchers within state agencies themselves.
Among some of the findings from state-funded cannabis research, a Minnesota study last month found that people with cancer who used cannabis “report significant improvements in cancer-related symptoms.” But it noted that the high cost of marijuana can be burdensome to less financially stable patients and raise “questions about affordability of and access to this therapy.”
Another study, out of Washington State last year, found declines in both lifetime and past-30-day marijuana use by adolescents and teens in recent years. Results also indicated that perceived ease of access to cannabis among underage students has generally fallen since the state enacted legalization for adults in 2012.
At the federal level, a recent memo listed “marijuana” as one of nearly two dozen “controversial or high-profile topics” that staff and researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) are required to clear with higher-ups before writing about, according to a newly leaked memo from within the federal agency.
“Depending on the nature of the information, additional review and clearance by the NCI director, deputy directors, NIH, and HHS may be required,” it advises staff. “In some cases, the material will not need further review, but the NCI Clearance Team will share it with NCI leadership, NIH, and/or HHS for their awareness.”
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Photo courtesy of National Institute of Standards and Technology.
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