💸 The Tape

While opponents of cannabis rescheduling spend this week in Arlington arguing there's insufficient scientific evidence supporting marijuana's medical value, researchers just published a five-year study that undermines the entire premise of their case.

A study published in the journal Biomedicines, conducted by researchers from the Department of Orthopedics at Hasharon Hospital, Rabin Medical Center in Israel, found that inhaled medical cannabis was associated with sustained improvements in pain and disability over five years among patients with treatment-resistant chronic low back pain — accompanied by one of the most dramatic opioid reductions ever documented in pain medicine literature.

The timing could not be more pointed. As SAM, NDASA, state attorneys general, and their designated experts testify before the DEA's administrative law judge that cannabis lacks legitimate medical utility, the evidence base keeps growing in exactly the opposite direction.

What the Study Found

The researchers analyzed data from 241 adults with chronic low back pain who had failed at least one year of conventional treatments — including opioids, NSAIDs, physiotherapy, and in many cases antidepressants and anticonvulsants. These weren't casual users seeking an excuse. They were treatment-resistant patients who had exhausted the standard medical toolkit and were still suffering.

Patients were treated with inhaled medical cannabis with THC levels ranging from 4% to 22% and CBD levels from 2% to 22%. After five years, 238 of the 241 patients provided follow-up data — an extraordinary retention rate for any long-term study — and 224 remained on active treatment.

The results were striking. Average pain scores fell from 8.08 to 2.72 — a reduction of more than five points on a ten-point scale, sustained across half a decade. At year five, 89.2% of patients achieved at least a 30% pain reduction, 77.2% achieved at least 50%, and 93.4% met the minimum clinically important difference — the threshold clinicians use to determine whether an improvement actually matters to a patient's life.

But the medication data is where the study becomes politically explosive. Opioid use dropped from 100% of patients at baseline to 4.6% after five years. NSAID use fell from 100% to 7.1%. SSRI/SNRI use declined from 80.5% to 5.4%. Gabapentinoid use fell from 38.6% to 2.5%.

Read that again: every single patient in this study entered on opioids. Five years later, 95.4% of them were off opioids entirely — replaced by a plant that the federal government classified alongside heroin for fifty years.

The safety profile reinforced the picture. Across 1,205 patient-years of cannabis exposure, adverse events were overwhelmingly mild — primarily ocular, cognitive, and gastrointestinal effects. Only five patients (2.1%) discontinued due to adverse events or lack of effectiveness. Compare that discontinuation rate to virtually any chronic pain pharmaceutical on the market.

The Honest Caveats — And Why They Don't Save the Opponents' Argument

The study's authors were appropriately careful, emphasizing the findings are observational — there was no randomized control group, meaning factors like regression to the mean, patient expectations, and self-selection could have influenced results. They called for randomized comparative trials to confirm the findings.

That scientific humility is exactly right. But here's what opponents at the ALJ hearing conveniently omit when they seize on such limitations: the legal standard doesn't require randomized controlled trials. The two-part CAMU test — validated by the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel — asks whether there is widespread current medical use under state law and whether there is "some credible scientific support" for at least one condition. A five-year prospective study of 241 patients with 98.8% follow-up, published in a peer-reviewed journal, documenting sustained pain relief and near-total opioid elimination, is credible scientific support by any honest definition.

The Mountain of Corroborating Evidence

The Israeli study doesn't stand alone. It joins a body of evidence that has been accumulating for decades — and that opponents at the hearing must pretend doesn't exist.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine — the most authoritative scientific body in the country — concluded in its landmark 2017 review of over 10,000 studies that there is "conclusive or substantial evidence" that cannabis is effective for the treatment of chronic pain in adults. That's not advocacy language. That's the highest evidence classification the National Academies assigns.

The government's own witness at the ALJ hearing, Dr. Corey Burchman, testified from clinical experience that medical cannabis is "extremely helpful in chronic pain patients as a means of analgesia" and that once it became available, physicians would "avidly use that ability to limit opioids" — with some patients transitioning off prescription painkillers entirely. His testimony mirrors the Israeli data almost exactly.

A 2024 study of patients with rheumatic conditions found that more than six in ten medical cannabis users reported substituting it for other medications — including opioids, NSAIDs, sleep aids, and muscle relaxants — with most reducing or eliminating those drugs entirely. A University of Kentucky study linked the availability of regulated dispensaries to lower opioid overdose rates. The HHS scientific review underpinning the rescheduling recommendation itself analyzed epidemiological data and concluded cannabis has a lower abuse and harm profile than substances in Schedules I and II.

And the FDA has already approved cannabinoid medicines — Epidiolex for seizures, Marinol and Syndros for nausea and appetite. The federal government cannot simultaneously approve cannabinoid drugs and claim cannabinoids have no medical value. That contradiction has been sitting in plain sight for years.

The Opponents' Real Problem

The witnesses testifying against rescheduling this week — Dr. Kenneth Finn, Dr. Phillip Drum, and the experts assembled by SAM and the state attorneys general — will point to data gaps, product variability, and the absence of FDA-style trials for whole-plant cannabis. Some of those observations are individually fair. Cannabis research was systematically obstructed for decades by the very Schedule I classification the opponents now defend — a circular logic in which the government blocked the research and then cited the lack of research as justification for the blockade.

But the claim that no data or science supports cannabis's medical value is simply false, and every new publication makes it more so. Five-year prospective data. National Academies conclusions. FDA-approved cannabinoid drugs. Six million registered patients. Hundreds of thousands of recommending physicians. And now a study showing 95% opioid elimination in treatment-resistant pain patients.

In the middle of an opioid epidemic that has killed more than a million Americans, opponents are standing before a federal judge arguing that a therapy which took an entire cohort of chronic pain patients off opioids should remain classified as having no accepted medical use.

The evidence isn't missing. It's overwhelming. The only question left is whether the people evaluating it are willing to look.

📈 Dog Walkers

$GLASF ( ▲ 1.06% ) Ships Hemp To EU

Glass House Brands just made its first sale outside California — and it crossed an ocean to do it.

The newly NYSE-listed producer announced the completion of its first international sale of smokeable CBD biomass to Europe, sourced from the initial commercial harvest of Greenhouse 4 at its Camarillo Farm. The greenhouse was planted for commercial hemp in Winter 2025 and produces biomass fully compliant with California regulations — and, critically, product that remains sellable under the proposed federal intoxicating hemp ban.

CEO Kyle Kazan called the sale "a historic step," noting it represents "the first sale of any Glass House product outside our home state." His framing was characteristically direct: "We will compliantly grow whatever cannabis and hemp that we can sell for the highest price as the legal channels continue to open for us."

The longer-term positioning is what makes this notable. Greenhouse 4 production is being aimed at the proposed federal Medicare-reimbursable CBD program, with Glass House leveraging its UC Berkeley collaboration on cannabinoid development to position as a supplier for both CPG and pharma entrants into that market.

European sales today. Medicare supply tomorrow. Medical cannabis exports next. For the lowest-cost producer in American cannabis, every new legal channel is an arbitrage opportunity — and the channels keep opening.

$GRWG ( ▼ 0.67% ) Gets A Seat At The Table

GrowGeneration is pulling up a seat at the policy table — and the timing tells you why.

The NASDAQ-listed cultivation supply company announced its membership in the U.S. Cannabis Roundtable (USCR), one of the leading federal cannabis policy organizations, with CEO and Co-Founder Darren Lampert representing the company alongside operators and ancillary businesses spanning all 41 legal states.

Charlie Bachtell, Cresco Labs CEO and USCR Chairperson, welcomed the addition, noting GrowGen's dual expertise "across both agriculture and cannabis" uniquely complements the group's advocacy for "commonsense industry regulations."

Lampert's rationale was refreshingly transparent: Schedule III rescheduling and the resulting 280E tax relief directly increase his customers' capacity to invest in cultivation infrastructure — the exact products GrowGeneration sells. "This is a meaningful tailwind for our customers," he said.

The logic is sound. Every dollar of tax relief flowing back to operators is potential capital expenditure on lights, nutrients, benching, and environmental controls. If broader rescheduling extends 280E relief to adult-use operations — the question at the center of the ongoing ALJ hearing — the reinvestment cycle accelerates further.

For ancillary companies, federal reform isn't abstract policy — it's customer purchasing power. GrowGen joining the advocacy infrastructure at this exact moment isn't coincidence. It's alignment of interest, formalized.

🗞️ The News

📺 Trade To Black

What's Happening Across Southern States in Cannabis? | TTB Presented by Flowhub

• ABA Pushes SAFER Banking: The American Bankers Association sent a letter to House and Senate leadership urging passage of SAFER Banking — a familiar ask, but one landing at an unprecedented moment with the ALJ hearing underway and federal reform momentum at all-time highs.

• Southern Cannabis Surge: Hirsh Jain of Ananda Strategy breaks down the region's transformation — Virginia's adult-use passage, Georgia's medical expansion, Texas's climbing patient numbers, Louisiana's strong medical program, and Arkansas surprisingly showing more cannabis users per capita than Florida.

• SCOTUS Gun Rights Ruling: The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that cannabis use alone isn't sufficient grounds to block firearm ownership — removing a barrier that has kept millions of Americans out of medical cannabis programs for fear of losing their Second Amendment rights.

• Patient Growth Catalyst: The gun rights decision could meaningfully boost enrollment across medical states, particularly in Southern and rural markets where firearm ownership rates are highest and the gun-rights tradeoff has been the single biggest deterrent to program participation.