The Michigan study is a new high for Sisley, who has been on the medical cannabis research grind for years with work that has proved to be, at times, as contentious as her subject matter. Before she moved to the University of Michigan, Sisley was affiliated with both the University of Arizona and Johns Hopkins University — appointments that both ended in controversy.

“This is a clear political retaliation for the advocacy and education I have been providing the public and lawmakers,” Sisley told the paper. “I pulled all my evaluations, and this is not about my job performance.”

Three years later, she joined Johns Hopkins University, where she planned to study the effects of medical cannabis on veterans with PTSD. But the study fell apart because of federal rules requiring the weed used in the trial be grown by the government when researchers found the government weed was moldy and did not contain enough THC to be studied effectively, the Washington Post reported. Sisley ultimately went public with the information, and faced with the choice of openly challenging federal regulations or canceling the study altogether, JHU chose to back out before a single patient was ever enrolled.

Sisley’s latest effort, however, seems to be in much better shape. UMich has given Sisley the official green light, sending out widespread calls for survey participants late last week. Plus, it seems unlikely Michigan legislators will take offense to the subject matter: Legislation allowing licensed dispensaries to sell medical cannabis passed in Michigan in 2016, and a small college upstate, Northern Michigan University, recently added a cannabis major to its studies under a medical context.

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