Dr. Sue Sisley

Suzanne "Sue" Sisley, MD, is an internist-psychiatrist and president of the Scottsdale Research Institute (SRI), the Arizona-based LLC she founded in 2009 after being dismissed from the University of Arizona in 2014 during controversy over her cannabis research. Sisley was site principal investigator on the MAPS-sponsored, FDA-regulated, Colorado-funded Phase 2 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial of three smoked whole-plant cannabis preparations versus placebo in 76 U.S. military veterans with PTSD, published in PLOS ONE on March 17, 2021 (Bonn-Miller, Sisley et al., PMID 33730032). ⚠️ The trial did not find a statistically significant difference between active cannabis (≈12% THC, 11% CBD, or a ≈1:1 THC/CBD preparation) and placebo on change in CAPS-5 PTSD symptom severity, though all arms were generally well tolerated; investigators attributed the null primary result partly to lower NIDA-supplied cannabis potency versus commercial products. In 2021 SRI became one of the first non-NIDA entities to receive a DEA Schedule I bulk manufacturer registration to cultivate cannabis for research, ending a decades-long federal supply monopoly. → See also: Compassionate use, PTSD.