The cannabis industry finds itself in a paradox of promise and paralysis.
The cannabis industry finds itself in a paradox of promise and paralysis. The oft wild, higgledy-piggledy marketing of so many strains, preparations and products has lead to an erosion of meaning for the customer base. As customers grow more accustomed to a constant drumbeat of extraordinary claims of potency, exclusivity and medicinal usefulness — coupled to a significant expectancy bias — the road ahead for the cannabis and hemp industry(ies) meets with a few immediate challenges.
Regulations and finance will be perpetual issues for these industries as they continue to be for every other space. The contemporary issues facing this plant-based industry revolve around data: how we access it and how it is used. The companies that can wield data effectively will be dangerous — as they allow the piercing of any illusion, branding or marketing ploy from competitors.
Who among us hasn’t been tempted by the claim of a specific product as the ultimate answer — yet emerged with more questions than clarity? The industry’s obsession with olfactory hierarchies of terpenes and flavors has supplanted genuine curiosity about the science of cannabis. For many educators and health professionals, this lack of engagement doesn’t compute: Why would anyone, in the face of an informative lecture or groundbreaking data, choose ignorance?
Further, most companies, businesses and government organizations do not hire or consult with PhDs who specialize in cannabinoids. Perhaps this is because PhDs are seen as philosophers. But philosophers are the “police force” of science, providing insights into what we know and why we know it. Perhaps this role of probing and challenging truths explains their underutilization in an industry still defining its own.
The Lifelessness of Data
These days, it feels like nobody truly cares about science or the people who use these products for medical reasons — and the available data reflects that apathy. Science should provoke and challenge; it should resist the conformities of official dogma, feel-good platitudes and the zeitgeist. Instead, much of the industry research efforts feel constrained by a desire to reinforce comfortable narratives rather than disrupt them.
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The freedom of industry-sponsored science isn’t just about autonomy for researchers. It’s about fostering a self-reliant industry. Yet this freedom often fails to translate into profound, boundary-pushing discoveries. Science is at its best when it ventures into the mysterious, into the unmarketable. Paradoxically, it’s in the noise and chaos between datasets where profound truths often lie. In cannabis science, however, the silos within silos, built on secretive and often inchoate methodologies, overwhelm us. The signals emerging from this noise are faint and fragmented.
The Noise of Siloed Data
Siloed data is meaningless. Aggregate data, however, holds the potential for gold. But achieving that potential requires breaking down the barriers of isolated research and fragmented findings. Four critical observations from the past year highlight the challenges we face in the cannabis and hemp industry:
1. Impairment and Reality: We are poor judges of our own impairment and intoxication, especially with cannabinoids. People took cannabis and rated their own impairment before driving in a simulator, and most vastly underestimated their own highness. Reality, it seems, is becoming increasingly subjective.
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2. The THC-CBD Dance: Despite countless THC:CBD ratio-ed products on the market, we still don’t know how to balance these two cannabinoids effectively. Evidence suggests that dosing and timing can make CBD either block THC’s intoxicating effects or intensify every effect of THC. Yet clarity on the optimal interplay between these compounds remains elusive.
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3. Consumer Gullibility: Novel, synthetic cannabinoids flood world markets. These crystalline powders, waved about in vials like illicit relics, are seemingly accepted without question; critical thinking around their impact remains in short supply.
4. Expectancy Bias: A well-documented psychological phenomenon wherein a person’s expectations or preconceived beliefs influence their actual experience. The illusion of diversity fueling the Sativa vs. Indica debate is clear evidence suggesting that such labels are meaningless. There exists no significant chemical or genetic difference between the two.
The Disappearance of Consensus Reality
As fact grows stranger than fiction, we find ourselves blessed — or cursed — to live in a world without common sense. This lack of shared reality about cannabinoids isn’t a crisis; it’s an opportunity. We must embrace the surreal and dream bigger, imagining futures and investigations that break free from the constraints of late-capitalist disaffection.
For example, cannabis activists continue to meet in closed rooms, fighting a culture war that has already ended in the broader world. Meanwhile, the industry struggles with financing, regulatory challenges and the specter of illicit markets clinging to high profits and unsubstantiated claims. Expectancy bias reigns supreme, preying on unsuspecting consumers and perpetuating the illusion of progress.
As the dust settles on market share battles, we must ask: What do we truly want to know? Medical cannabis businesses cannot serve patients effectively by functioning as deli counters, offering first-come, first-served solutions. True progress requires evidence, reproducibility and tools — whether they are supercomputers or simpler mechanisms — to enable the aggregation and heterogeneity of data on a global scale.
Let’s start by accepting the inevitable: Much of what we see, hear and believe is a performance, an illusion. And that’s okay. Life itself has become a fiction, spinning out representations that teeter on the edge of the real. The multiverse of fantasies we inhabit may seem overwhelming, but it’s also liberating. Reality is gone, lost among the curated posts of social media and the digital ghosts of past lives. In its place is a blank canvas waiting for us to imagine, create and discover something new.
Closing Thoughts
As Adam Smith observed, science is the antidote to enthusiasm and superstition — yet it must be wielded responsibly to avoid becoming poison itself. The year ahead presents a chance to embrace science’s true power: not to conform, but to challenge, innovate and reveal truths that inspire meaningful progress. Let’s stop lying to ourselves about what drives us and instead pursue what truly matters — however strange or uncomfortable those truths may be.
