Former New Jersey CannaBusiness Association President Scott Rudder has been named chief strategy officer at the American Journal of Endocannabinoid Medicine, based out of Woodland Park.
AJEM has also brought on Dr. Uma Dhanabalan, a well-known doctor in the cannabis space nationwide, as medical director.
The newest issue of the journal includes peer-reviewed articles on the impact of cannabis on COVID-19, how cannabidiol can help people get through opioid withdrawal and the impacts of cannabidiol on children with intellectual disabilities and behavioral issues.
It will be distributed to more than 46,000 doctors.
Over his nearly three decades of work in medical publishing, Publisher Ken Watkins said he noticed how medical journals he respected handled the subject of medical cannabis: tepid, and as if there were few real studies out there. But just open biomedical literature platform PubMed and tons of studies on cannabis come up, he said, largely from Israel and the Netherlands, Germany, and Canada.
“I know tons of people who are using cannabis in a medicinal way, so why not [reach doctors in a way they’re used to], which is medical journals? Why not make it about anything that engages the endocannabinoid system?” Watkins asked.
The endocannabinoid system, a biological system within humans and other mammals, engages not just with cannabis but with psilocybin, lavender, erotic movies, and more, he said—but only 13% of universities have classes dedicated to it.
In the COVID world, understanding the cannabinoid system is important as much to understand the benefits of cannabinoids as well as the limitations.
“You see so many claims about what cannabis can do to prevent or treat COVID and that’s concerning and scary for us because none of those claims are rooted in research. When we looked at the research there were very promising things, but then also – we feel it’s our responsibility to report on both,” Watkins said.
Like other medical journals, AJEM uses a peer review process to pick apart research that’s sent in, only publishing what’s been proven true after rigorous fact checking. Some of what they receive is sent back to the researcher to gather further information and most of what AJEM receives isn’t published at all because the journal, they said, isn’t pro-cannabis. It’s pro-science.
Rudder, a former politician, has spent the past four years lobbying the New Jersey legislature to legalize adult use cannabis as part of his job at the NJCBA, now led by Burton Trent colleague Edmund DeVeaux, with whom he founded the organization.
“When we were talking about expansion for patients and legal access for adults, a lot of the pushback was antiquated information and stereotypes; and when you presented people with facts, they questioned the source,” Rudder said. “What’s exciting here is before it gets to print, it’s been questioned over and over and over. We want to make sure when decision makers are making policy, they do so with facts.”
AJEM is geared toward medical professionals, not politicians—but who politicians do look to when forming laws and policies with medical effects? Ideally, medical professionals.
Watkins noted that while a typical medical journal might not need a Rudder on its board—the sandboxes they’re playing in are all Food & Drug Administration approved, rather than governed by laws that vary state-by-state and Drug Enforcement Agency scheduling—for the AJEM, doctors need to understand the endocannabinoid system to have meaningful conversations with those who write the legislation.
“[Legislation] changes as you cross state lines, but what doesn’t change is we all have an endocannabinoid system,” Watkins said. “Whether you’re in a state where it’s legal and adult use legal, or a state where it’s not, doctors need to know about it.”
