Although she notes we don’t yet know the long-term effects of cannabis on women’s health, McIlvaine-Newsad also believes the persistent focus on negative effects of cannabis is a political holdover from cannabis prohibition, rather than the product of legitimate medical concerns. “As long as society at large and politicians in general continue to hold the belief that cannabis is bad, then those are the kinds of questions that science will ask,” she stresses. “Not ones like, ‘Can cannabis be used to effectively manage postpartum depression?’”