Republicans should listen to Ronald Reagan, not Joe Rogan, on cannabis
Young cannabis plants at the Texas Original Compassion Cultivation medical marijuana dispensary located outside of Austin.Jessica Phelps/San Antonio Express-NewsLast week, a coalition of doctors, addiction experts, and patient advocates filed a federal lawsuit to stop the Trump administration from loosening the restrictions on medical marijuana. They’re also joined by the attorneys general of Nebraska and Indiana and the bipartisan drug policy organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana in separate suits.The most important thing the public should know about the federal government’s plan to reclassify medical cannabis to the less dangerous Schedule III category is that it was based on political science, not medical science. The sad truth is that the evidence for the many psychiatric and physical harms from cannabis use has become, like the addictive products themselves, only stronger in recent years.Article continues below this adActing Attorney General Todd Blanche’s has claimed that rescheduling was necessary to allow “for research on the safety and efficacy of this substance.” But even the pro-marijuana group NORML acknowledges that there have been over 35,000 studies worldwide on weed in just the last decade. According to the author of a recent UCLA Health review of 2,500 studies on the question, there are "significant gaps between public perception and scientific evidence regarding its effectiveness for most medical conditions" And it’s not just about marijuana users hurting themselves. There’s also evidence for cannabis car crash deaths. One recent six-year study in Ohio showed recent THC use in more than 40% of the dead drivers autopsied.Make us a Preferred Source on Google to see more of us when you search.The real reason the industry wants marijuana moved to Schedule III is because that is where generous tax breaks kick in — and that might even include retroactive tax refunds. But that taxpayer money could be put to much better use educating the public on the serious mental, physical and fiscal impacts of the industry’s products rather than toward fueling an addiction-for-profit agenda. President Donald Trump displays an executive order reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)Evan Vucci/Associated PressHow much will we all have to pay for the growth in marijuana-induced mental health disorders? Each new case of schizophrenia afflicts not just the patient and family but costs the public over two million dollars in lifetime costs. We can estimate that in young men, the prime cannabis using population, up to 30% of such cases could have been avoided if they did not have cannabis use disorder. A 2025 large study also showed that cannabis users quadrupled their risk of becoming diabetic and will thus incur over two times more medical costs on a condition for which the U.S. spends over $400 billion per year. Article continues below this adThank goodness Texas has leaders like Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who charged the Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee with examining the societal impacts of cannabis use.This is an issue we need to take seriously. There are now around 18 million daily marijuana users, up from less than one million in the “just say no” era under President Ronald Reagan. The assurances that cannabis prohibition doesn’t work or that marijuana legalization would only affect the still thriving black market couldn’t have been more wrong.That’s why important public health and safety policy decisions should be informed by the scientific evidence — not addiction industry executives, well-heeled club members or drug-using podcasters like Joe Rogan. No one opposes continued research. But the public should know that cannabis rescheduling is not an indication of its safety so much as the growing political power of a predatory industry.The human brain on drugs might not be exactly an egg on a frying pan as the famous commercial depicted. But that is much more honest than allowing a small but powerful cabal of drug profiteers to tell another generation of Americans that more cannabis use is harmless or even beneficial.In February, even the chronically pro-legalization editorial board at the New York Times acknowledged that this “has led to worse outcomes than many Americans expected” and recommended multiple new restrictions. Despite relentless industry lobbying and gaslighting, polls show pro-legalization sentiment declining, as people see with their own eyes what the science already shows about cannabis use.Article continues below this adPolls change. Facts don’t. The former may inform the midterms, but the latter will prevail in the long term. Republicans may soon wish they had listened to Reagan instead of Rogan on this issue, and kept their fingerprints off of this weapon of cultural suicide.Matt Poling is a family physician, faculty, veteran and Medical Advisor for Citizens for a Safe and Healthy Texas.
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