“Our major concern is that if you start decriminalizing these substances prior to developing a strong evidence base for their efficacy, it undermines efforts to do research. We’ve seen that with cannabis: state decriminalization and widespread availability and access to cannabis has made it difficult to do rigorous clinical trials.”
How does decriminalization undermine research efforts or make it difficult to do rigorous clinical trials? I’m drawing a blank trying to imagine answers to this.
Not totally sure, but I assume because it's hard to commercialize a drug that is available at a dispensary so there is no incentive for drug developers to shell out the millions of dollars that would be needed to study safety and efficacy.
“Our major concern is that if you start decriminalizing these substances prior to developing a strong evidence base for their efficacy, it undermines efforts to do research. We’ve seen that with cannabis: state decriminalization and widespread availability and access to cannabis has made it difficult to do rigorous clinical trials.”
How does decriminalization undermine research efforts or make it difficult to do rigorous clinical trials? I’m drawing a blank trying to imagine answers to this.
Not totally sure, but I assume because it's hard to commercialize a drug that is available at a dispensary so there is no incentive for drug developers to shell out the millions of dollars that would be needed to study safety and efficacy.