nature

Is Chuck Schumer going to blunt US cannabinoid research?

On 20 April the duo announced a bill that would make New York the 41^st state to deem possession or sale of the active ingredients in so-called ‘synthetic marijuana’ drugs a crime punishable by jail time. The drugs in question—known to the mostly teenagers who like to smoke them as K2, Spice, Killer Buzzz, Blaze and Mr. Nice Guy—are mixtures of herbs such as oregano laced with laboratory-produced cannabinoids, a class of chemicals that also includes marijuana’s psychoactive component, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

The dangers ofsynthetic cannabinoids are clear. A studypublished this month inPediatricsdocumented more than 4,000 US hospital cases in which teens who used K2 and other drugs required emergency intervention for symptoms such as a dangerously rapid heart rate. But medical researchers warn that the march toward nationwide criminalization that started with a 2010 Kansas law banning three synthetic cannabinoids has already begun to stifle research on the chemicals, which are known to stimulate appetite and ameliorate nausea and pain. “It would be a disaster if they criminalized all synthetic cannabinoids,” says pharmacologist Nathan Lents at the City University of New York. “We already have to jump through hoops to do our research. These substances clearly have untapped potential as therapies.”

Therapeutic benefits aside, momentum is growing for broad criminalization not only among states but at the federal level. A US Senate bill introduced last March by Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York, would criminalize all synthetic cannabinoids nationwide. “That would be so traumatic,” explains Lents, “because that law classifies all cannabinoids as schedule 1 drugs.” A ‘schedule 1’ drug has no known medical use, and so is very tightly controlled by the federal government. A researcher conducting experiments with any schedule 1 substance must submit protocols signed by the president of his university to the US Drug Enforcement Agency in order to obtain small amounts of the chemical, which then must be kept locked in a safe when not in use, and must fill out mountains of paperwork accounting for the chemical’s use in experiments. Lents says requiring researchers to jump through such hoops chokes research and draws already spare funding away from cannabinoid labs. “There’s already not a lot of political will because these substances are seen as somehow morally reprehensible. A schedule 1 designation would make it even harder to study them.”