“Rescheduling will not answer every question overnight, but it will make it easier. It may also help pave the way for more rational healthcare policies.”
By Joanna Zeiger, Canna Research Foundation
As an Olympian and Ironman 70.3 World Champion, cannabis was something we were warned about. It was a banned substance, a potential career-ending mistake and certainly not medicine. I avoided it wholesale and conversations around it were taboo. That was in the early 2000s—yet much of today’s debate around rescheduling mirrors the same misconceptions that were dominant then.
I have spent much of my professional life studying it to fight that false narrative.
For eight years, I worked at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics (IBG) at the University of Colorado Boulder conducting marijuana research in adolescents and young adults, focusing on risk, misuse and negative outcomes.
Then a cycling accident changed everything. In 2009, I suffered a devastating crash that left me with chronic pain, nausea, loss of appetite and severe sleep disruption from a clavicle and multiple rib fractures. Years were spent pursuing conventional treatments. Some provided temporary relief. None restored my quality of life.
Medical cannabis was suggested. I resisted in part because of the athletic stigma
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