Opportunities in medical ganjapreneurship

Not surprisingly, this was another year when marijuana legalization spread like a weed. It is likely to continue in coming years and many are expecting it to, eventually, be legalized throughout the US, like Canada and Uruguay. So far, 21 countries or territories have legalized cannabis fully or partially for medical and/or adult use. Its legalization in many states expanded as a result of the recent mid-term elections.

Colorado marijuana sales reached $1B in sales in record time.

8.4% of people aged 65 or older said in 2022 they used marijuana in the past year according to a recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Plus Colorado is joining Oregon?as the second state to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms and establish a regulated industry for plant-based psychedelic drugs.

?As more countries and states legalize recreational marijuana use, organizations may increasingly find themselves tasked with understanding and addressing the impact of weed in the workplace. Many celebrities have suggested that cannabis has aided in their creative pursuits — but the authors’ recent research suggests that while weed can make you think your ideas are more creative, it doesn’t actually have any impact on your ability to produce objectively creative ideas. As such, the authors argue that at least when it comes to roles that require clear-eyed evaluation of creative options, organizations may stand to benefit from implementing policies that respect personal freedom while encouraging employees to stay sober. That said, given the finding that cannabis use had no significant impact on actual creativity, the authors also suggest that for certain roles, prohibiting pot may be an unnecessary infringement on workers’ lives. It’s up to managers to ensure that their decisions and rules related to workplace cannabis use are informed not by pop culture or out-of-date assumptions, but by the latest developments in this nascent scientific field.

The Drug Enforcement Administration wants to reclassify marijuana as "less dangerous," a move that, if approved, would represent a historic 180-degree turn. The proposal would downgrade marijuana from Schedule I — a drug with no medical purpose and a potential for abuse — to Schedule III, a category that also applies to prescription drugs like Tylenol with codeine. Rescheduling could hand the cannabis industry a much-needed boost: Venture-capital investments fell to $550 million last year after hitting $3 billion in 2019. The move would also allow cannabis companies to deduct business expenses on their taxes.

Bertha Madras thinks this would be a colossal mistake. Ms. Madras, 81, is a psychobiology professor at Harvard Medical School and one of the foremost experts on marijuana. “It’s a political decision, not a scientific one,” she says. “And it’s a tragic one.” In 2024, that is a countercultural view.

That means there are plenty of opportunities for physicians and other medical ganjapreneurs to innovate, much like participating in various roles in the biopharma industry:

1. Providing education and training to medical practitioners as edupreneurs
2. Becoming cannabis science liaisons
3. Doing basic drug discovery, development, and testing, particularly since the passage of the recent Farm Bill
4. Track and trace supply chain improvement
5. Physician investing
6. Retail distribution, sales, and marketing
7. Startup ganjapreneurship
8. Regulatory affairs professionals
9. Medical marijuana public health entrepreneurship and policy
10. Product liability and expert witness participation
11. Growth and extraction cannabis agribusiness
12. Digital health applications including e-metered dose inhaler applications and digital therapeutics
13. Personalized pot practice
14. Public health education about the risks of using marijuana
15. Getting involved in medical marijuana policy initiatives, particularly changing cannabis to a level 3 drug from a level 1 so researchers can do determine its safety and efficacy in various diseases.
16. Mitigating the side effects of prolonged marijuana use
17. Organic weed

The bad news is that cannabis can have many adverse medical effects. Are we about to learn the lessons learned from tobacco and alcohol?

Here is the core course.

Many doctors are reluctant to recommend medical marijuana . Seize the opportunities. This bud's for you.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs on Substack and Editor of Digital Health Entrepreneurship