Welcome to Senior Cannabis Digest. This week we look at cannabis and holiday celebrations, how rescheduling is likely to move forward, an opinion about rescheduling from a health-policy advocate and how many elite athletes are using CBD as part of their training program. Have a wonderful holiday. See you in the New Year.
Notable Numbers
Top Takeaway: A new survey says one in three Americans will use cannabis before attending a holiday gathering with the family.
According to Kyle Jaeger, reporting for Marijuana Moment, a new survey from the Freeman Recovery Center found that about half of Americans said they “pre-game” before holiday family gatherings.
Jaeger notes that while alcohol is the most common drug of choice at 51 percent, 31 percent of respondents said they plan to use cannabis before attending a family event.
Ho, ho, ho indeed.
To learn more, we urge you to read Kyle Jaeger’s article in the December 22, 2025 issue of Marijuana Moment.net.
Rescheduling News and Notes
Top Takeaway: Despite President Trump’s directive, the rescheduling of cannabis will not happen overnight. Expect delays.
Thanks to President Trump’s decision to direct the DEA to reschedule cannabis, some things have changed, some things will change down the road and some things, at least in the near term, won’t change very much at all.
As Norman Yousif, the CEO and founder of Off The Charts (OTC), a leading cannabis dispensary chain operating in multiple states told MJBizDaily, rescheduling cannabis to Schedule III does not do the following:
• It does not legalize cannabis federally.
• It does not allow interstate commerce.
• It does not eliminate federal enforcement authority – or state regulation.
• It does not bypass US Food and Drug Administration standards for medical or pharmaceutical use.
To help you sort it all out, Chris Roberts, writing for MJBizDaily, has put together an overview of what to expect over the next few months.
For starters, Roberts notes that while Trump’s order instructs Attorney General Pam Bondi to reschedule marijuana “in the most expeditious manner in accordance” with federal law, it could be months before the promised benefits for research and tax relief appear.
Said Shane Pennington, a prominent administrative law expert and partner at Blank Rome, “The issue is, they’re going to have a bureaucratic gauntlet to run.”
In reality, it is likely the DEA will still want to hold public hearings to solicit input from interested parties. Roberts points out that Attorney General Bondi could cancel the hearings and publish a final rule in the Federal Register reclassifying cannabis a Schedule III drug, but if Bondi does that, there’s another hurdle to clear: legal challenges.
According to Roberts, Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a prominent prohibitionist organization, has already retained former Attorney General Bill Barr to file a suit to block rescheduling. Observers predict it is likely to challenge rescheduling on procedural grounds and allege that federal administrative law wasn’t obeyed.
Matthew Cavedon, the director of the Project on Criminal Justice at the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based libertarian think tank, observed that if a federal judge decides the process was “bungled” and marijuana rescheduling ends up mired in the lawsuits that legalization opponents have vowed to bring, it could be another two or three years before Schedule III is a reality.
What has changed is the de facto acknowledgement by the administration — by directing the Attorney General to begin moving cannabis to a Schedule III designation — that cannabis does have medical benefits, because that’s what it takes to be listed on Schedule III.
It’s a small, subtle change, but a different world view, nonetheless.
Chris Roberts continues to do an excellent job of shining a light on all of the “nooks and crannies” in the rescheduling process. To learn more, we urge you to read his article in the December 22, 2025 issue of MJBizDaily.com.
You can also benefit from reading Noman Yousif’s op-ed in the December 19, 2025 issue of MJBizDaily.com.
https://mjbizdaily.com/news/why-marijuana-rescheduling-is-a-real-shift-but-not-the-finish-line/613632/
Cannabis Quote of the Week
Top Takeaway: Rescheduling will make it possible for advocates and opponents to have a new, fact-based conversation about the benefits and risks of cannabis use.
“I’m asked all the time what science says we should do about the increasing use of and legal permissiveness around marijuana.
That’s the wrong question. Partly because the science isn’t that strong but more critically because science alone doesn’t dictate policy. Rational people can look at all the data and reach very different conclusions about what we might do.
What science can do is identify the areas of concern and suggest options for how we might tackle them.
One place to start is potency. Today’s cannabis products are far stronger than those studied a generation ago. High-potency products should face higher taxes, stricter labeling and tighter marketing limits, much as higher-proof alcohol does. Adults could still buy them, but the market should not push people toward them by default.
Public education also needs to improve. We must avoid scare tactics and wellness slogans. Today’s cannabis industry markets high-potency products aggressively, sometimes overstating benefits or downplaying risks. Good science communication would include honest messages that risks rise with potency, early use, frequency of use and certain mental health histories.
We need more research into how to best combat impaired driving. Blood THC thresholds do not reliably measure impairment. Officer training, including on how to observe signs of intoxication based on drivers’ behavior, and public campaigns focused on the risks of cannabis use combined with alcohol would help reduce harm.
If cannabis is going to generate tax revenue, it should help pay for the consequences it creates. Emergency departments, early psychosis programs and treatment for cannabis use disorder should not be afterthoughts.
Finally, we need better data. Legalization raced ahead of the surveillance of its public health consequences. States should be required to track cannabis-related emergency visits, poisonings and mental health crises. We cannot manage what we don’t measure.
This is where rescheduling matters. Moving marijuana out of its most restrictive federal category won’t settle the legalization debate. But that would make it easier to generate the kind of evidence needed to refine policy. The real lesson here isn’t even about cannabis. It’s about our capacity to learn and adapt. We can celebrate the significant reduction in incarceration while honestly confronting new challenges in vulnerable populations.
This requires all of us — policymakers, researchers, advocates and citizens — to reject ideological entrenchment. We need officials willing to adjust course based on new data, not just defend initial decisions. We need researchers committed to studying real-world outcomes, not just confirming prior beliefs. And we need advocates willing to acknowledge trade-offs, not just claim victories.”—Aaron E. Carroll.
Mr. Carroll is the president and chief executive of AcademyHealth, a nonpartisan group that advances evidence-based health policy. His comments are taken from an op-ed he wrote that appeared in the December 19, 2025 issue of The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/opinion/trump-marijuana-policy.html?
Cannabis and Sports
Top Takeaway: Many elite athletes are using CBD to improve sleep, manage pain and improve recovery after a workout.
A recent study found that a significant number of top competitors are using CBD to manage pain, improve sleep and ease the stress of training at the highest level. However, while many athletes believe the cannabis compound helps them recover after a workout, some also worry that using it could put their careers at risk under international anti-doping rules.
That’s the word from Aaron Houston, reporting for Marijuana Moment. According to Houston, the study, which was conducted between late 2021 and mid-2023, and was recently published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition, surveyed 80 elite Canadian athletes across 27 national sport organizations. To be included in the study, athletes needed to have experience as part of the country’s Olympic or Paralympic team program.
The study found the following:
• About 38 percent of the athletes queried reported using CBD at some point, and nearly a third of those said they were still using it at the time of the survey.
• 96 percent of CBD users said they believed the substance was safe.
• 93 percent said it improved their sleep.
• 90 percent said it helped them relax, and
• 77 percent credited it with reducing pain from training.
In his article, Houston makes the point that while the World Anti-Doping Agency removed CBD from its list of banned substances in 2018, all other cannabinoids—including THC—remain prohibited.
This creates conditions that the authors of the study describe as “a fine line between unintentional doping and intentional use of cannabis products.”
That’s because many commercially available CBD products contain trace levels of these banned compounds. As a result, athletes who rely on them may be risking inadvertent doping violations. That concern, researchers found, was the single most common reason athletes chose not to try CBD or stopped using it altogether.
In their study, the authors, who are affiliated with McGill University and the Canadian Sport Institute, also noted that, “Some CBD-fortified foods and beverages have been reported to convert CBD into THC under low pH conditions…potentially yielding sufficient THC (3 mg) to trigger a positive urine test for prohibited cannabinoids.”
In addition, some athletes voiced a concern that physical exertion prior to testing may also increase detectable THC levels.
Aaron Houston’s reporting is clear and concise. To learn more, we suggest reading his article in the December 16, 2025 issue of Marijuana Moment.net.
Senior Cannabis Digest is compiled and edited by Joe Kohut and John Kohut. You can reach them at joe.kohut@gmail.com and at 347-528-8753.