“Becoming a credible healthcare category does not require whole-plant cannabinoid medicine to become indistinguishable from conventional pharmaceuticals,” wrote Matthew Myro Rothman in an op-ed published by Marijuana Moment. Rothman is affiliated with EM2P2 and CannaLnx.
The op-ed addresses the question of who will decide what cannabinoid healthcare looks like as cannabis gains legitimacy. Rothman argued the next cannabis fight will be about institutional power rather than legalization.
That power includes who writes the rules, controls the data and builds the systems through which cannabinoid medicine enters American healthcare, he wrote.
Healthcare runs on standards, reimbursement systems, provider networks, clinical data, documentation, patient records and research protocols, according to the op-ed. Those systems determine which therapies are recognized and how patients access care.
Rothman wrote that the cannabis industry must help build those systems or eventually inherit systems designed by somebody else.
The op-ed noted that in April, the federal government moved qualifying state-regulated medical cannabis products from Schedule I to Schedule III. Rothman called this an extraordinary acknowledgment that cannabis has accepted medical use.
He also noted that the Drug Enforcement Administration launched a separate hearing process over the broader rescheduling of marijuana. Those proceedings have implications for federal treatment of cannabis beyond state medical programs, including state-regulated adult-use markets.
Rothman wrote that decades of state-regulated programs have produced an enormous body of practical knowledge about cannabinoid medicine. Patients have learned which formulations work for them, and clinicians have accumulated observations about dosing and outcomes.
Breeders and cultivators have developed sophisticated knowledge of genetics and chemotypes, he added. Dispensary professionals have spent years helping patients navigate products, delivery methods and cannabinoid ratios.
He noted this knowledge developed outside traditional clinical infrastructure because cannabis had no other choice, despite federal rules restricting cannabis research for nearly a century.
Rothman wrote that the challenge is organizing and documenting that knowledge in ways insurers, researchers, regulators and healthcare institutions can reliably use.
If the industry fails, he warned, cannabis could achieve legitimacy while the knowledge that built medical cannabis remains fragmented, underdocumented or pushed aside. He called that a tremendous loss.
The op-ed stated that medical cannabis should meet healthcare expectations for safety, evidence, accountability and data integrity. Rothman described those expectations as appropriate.
He argued that healthcare integration should not require pharmaceutical assimilation. Credibility, in his view, does not depend on becoming indistinguishable from conventional pharmaceuticals.
The op-ed’s current status is as a published argument urging the industry to document its knowledge before outside institutions define cannabinoid medicine’s place in healthcare.
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