Set back is not in Sue Sisley’s vocabulary.
When the researcher was fired from her UA non-tenured clinical assistant professorship last summer, Sisley took center stage on news outlets across the country. While the UA denied it, Sisley claimed political pressure from a conservative and anti-marijuana state Legislature led to her contract not being renewed, derailing the marijuana PTSD research she’d be fighting for the past five years.
Problem is Sisley’s research is for U.S. military veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and she’s grown really fond of them. They in turn have gone to bat for her on the steps of the state capitol, as well as before the Arizona Board of Regents, asking that she be reinstated.
The latest round targeted ASU, hoping it could provide a new home for her research with 50 veterans she’s been working with who live and work in Arizona. But she and her veterans have given up on ASU making a home, so Sisley told the Tucson Weekly she’s going to do her research independently and keeping it in Arizona, having recently been approved by the private, federally regulated Institutional Review Board.
Besides the private research approval, Sisley is celebrating approval and funding from Colorado’s Medical Marijuana Scientific Advisory Council and Johns Hopkins University partnering with her in the study. This comes with a state grant of more than $2 million.
The remaining study, however, is in Arizona. But why? Why not pack it all end and say good bye the crazyland?
“I intend to keep this research in the backyard of our opponents. I’ve lived in Arizona for 30 years and I have no intention of moving,” she says.
“Just because there are a few extremists out there who oppose this work who tried to run me and my research out of town doesn’t mean I am going to roll over and allow that to actually happen. I have a duty to the veterans of this state.”
Sisley says she made a commitment to those veterans when her study was first approved by the Federal Drug Administration five years ago—the first study of its kind to received FDA approval.
Sisley says she’s disappointed that all three state universities have said no to her work, effectively turning their backs on state combat veterans suffering from PTSD in her opinion.
Reportedly, ASU representatives have said they never heard from Sisley, but the researcher says it was the university that never communicated with her and the veterans. “They walked away from us,” she says, “not the other way around.”
Sisley says they have a location selected in Scottsdale for the research, but continue to negotiate the lease agreement with the landowner. Another promising turn is that the National Institute of Drug Abuse confirmed with Sisley’s sponsor, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, that it finally had three of the four strains ready for Sisley’s research.
Sisley says the delay in getting the marijuana came from the federal requirement that it comes from NIDA and not from a private grow operation.
Sisley says that fourth strain is important to her study, as it must be a strain that is equal parts THC and equal parts cannaboids. It’s a strain many of her veterans have told her works very well for their PTSD symptoms. But because she can’t get the strain from medical marijuana or legal marijuana grow operation, she has to wait for NIDA to grow this particular kind of strain.
A typical grow takes three months, but with the feds involved, Sisley says it’s taken longer. She’s been told by the summer, but she’s thinking it will most likely be by fall because NIDA does not have a track record of growing CBD-rich marijuana.
Sisley says the private research approval has helped her get over rejection from ASU and the state, and with the three strains now available, the research is ready to move forward.
“A lot of folks rooting for us here and that’s what matters. We tried to work with ASU. We hoped UA would reconsider. Obviously the private sector was our best hope,” she says.
<p.However, she expects attacks against her research to continue. But, just like she reminded us last year, she reminded us again—Sisley has not political agenda or interest in marijuana legalization. This is about good research and the ability to help veterans suffering from PTSD.
“I think we have the greatest comeback story of 2015,” she says, listing the partnership with John Hopkins and the grant from Colorado.
“We’re winning and left the University of Arizona in the dust and they should be ashamed. In the end, I still have a tremendous affection for UA, but a disdain for the poor judgment of the people at the top.”
This article appears in Apr 16-22, 2015.
Everyone who’s against her research should have their names plastered everywhere. They seem comfortable hiding in anonymity.
Put a face on the bastards and keep it public.
Go Dr. Sue, we need this!! thank you so much for helping us.
Thank you, Dr. Sue for your relentless dedication to our Veterans. We love you!
and miss you here in minnesota.
Thank God the study a finally is getting started. It will be the base for our campaign to get the VA to supply whole plant medical cannabis to Vets for chronic pain and PTSD. (Veterans for Medical Cannabis Access)
Arizona needs a simple proposal on the ballot to force our Land Grant University System. To study the effect and medical capabilities of Marijuana and the commercial development of Hemp. Arizona does not need a Marijuana Control board that wants to control both. Still if passed it would not establish study at the Universities for market just a power grab.
Thank you Dr. Sue for all you do to help Veterans.
What the University of Arizona did to this research physician is one of the worst hatchet jobs I have ever seen. The U of A is NOT into research but has its base in Politics/money. They have no interest in scientific truth but do have a great interest where the “next grant is coming from”. Now that is the main aim for the U of A. Money and Politics Not science.
Many of the University nobility are no better than church elders who threw Galileo into the town of Milan for life when he said, “The Earth was not the center of the Universe.”
The fault is that they think they are modern and scientific; they are Not. Marijuana research is at the very cutting edge of medical science. The plant and the chemistry within will bring many medical discoveries in the days ahead. The U of A will be left in the dust as other investigate the medical properties of this plant.
The U of A owes this physician a formal apology for their affront to her and their medieval mindset. A pull of the strings in Phoenix will set the U of A dancing like a puppet on a string.
Disgusting…………………..
Most of the “Golden Ones” at the U of A are products of training not talent. The difference is night and day. Many are basically fugitives from the state hospital. In fact the greatest number of admissions to area psychiatric hospitals are U of A professors.
Now the U of A had a diamond in Dr. Sue Sisley. A progressive physician with a investigative mind who was out to help Veterans. Oh, no we can’t have that! We want the credit not her! So now enters something called “professional jealousy”. Professionals will murder based on this issue. Remember, the eye surgeon who killed his partner due to professional jealousy here in Tucson? That’s how bad it can be……….
Dr. Sisley will investigate the mysteries of the Cannabis Plant and I predict she will make some striking discoveries. When this happens, the U of A will have a “change of heart” and try to bring her back into the U of A fold. I sincerely hope she tells the U of A where to get off and to shove their phony school up their vent.
Remember all major scientific discoveries are found at the ends of the Bell Curve not in the center of the Bell Curve. The U of A is out of touch and a educational system that rewards conformity not research and science.
I did not mean to comment twice but wha the U of A did to this doctor I find particularly offensive and vile.
Dr.Sue you are an inspiration to many, as a prior cancer patient who fought two battles of HCC liver cancer in remission (7) months and a weed smoker most my life can say this the people who are stopping you from research should stop and remember nothing gets done to help people in need unless there is research, wake up University”s marijuana is about to be legal in half of America and when that money stops for your own uses you are only hurting yourself by trying to stop her, its a proven fact look at history. Dr Sue you and your staff are in my prayers and I wish you the best.