Plant medicines can reduce suffering.

OUR STORY

Our president and principal investigator Sue Sisley MD, an Internal Medicine clinician, was skeptical when she heard from her veteran patients that cannabis helped their symptoms of PTSD. However, their persistence that a plant was more effective than pharmaceutical medications convinced Dr. Sue that natural medicines may be viable options to treat chronic conditions. But there simply wasn’t any federal research on the subject and existing legal barriers made such studies nearly impossible to conduct.

Joining a growing movement for more knowledge on plant medicines, SRI Foundation studies naturally-occurring compounds in plants–such as cannabis and psilocybin–and advocates for more comprehensive policy that allows researchers to understand controlled plant substances so they may one day be applied as safe alternatives to synthetic drugs. 

SRI Foundation Cannabis
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Sue Sisley and Rick Dobbins
SRI Foundation Psilocybin
SRI Foundation FDA
Trichome SRI Foundation

Support the future of research by making a contribution to SRI Foundation.

Many people seek out psychoactive plants, like cannabis or psilocybin mushrooms, to treat various chronic conditions. But federal regulations on controlled substances are so antiquated that not even researchers at universities can access materials to fully study plant medicines and their potential benefits when used in healing. This status quo leaves researchers without quality data, regulations without updates, and patients–including veterans, people with OCD, addiction, or eating disorders–without safe access to all treatment options.

The SRI Foundation (formerly the Scottsdale Research Institute Foundation) formed in 2009 out of a need for high-quality data on cannabis for veterans with PTSD in a country where strict prohibitions keep both patients and scientists in the dark. As a nonprofit research center, SRI has combined policy know-how with rigorous research protocol to open the door for better understanding in the way plant medicines impact or potentially heal patients struggling with disease. 

Our Vision

SRI Foundation works toward a world where people dealing with trauma, addiction, OCD, eating disorders, or end-of-life can find relief from symptoms with natural plant medicines. But to reach that future, both public perception and the government’s understanding of these medicines has to change. We help move the dial through advocacy and quality scientific research.

Our Mission

SRI Foundation is a research organization dedicated to understanding the science behind medicinal plants and advocating for legal pathways for researchers and patients to access them.

our Founder & Executive Director: Sue Sisley MD

For over a decade, SRI President and Principal Investigator Sue Sisley MD has led an initiative to work with stakeholders in the government, the scientific community, and the public to ease barriers on the research needed to understand and harness healing agents naturally found in some plants. After being fired from a university for her work on cannabis research, Dr. Sue found a home at Humboldt State and has since created a network of researchers, medical professionals, and patients to advance support for essential and groundbreaking studies.

Our work has culminated in the first-ever clinical trial with cannabis and veterans with PTSD, several successful lawsuits, and the end to a federal monopoly on cannabis cultivation for the purposes of research. Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, our team continues to work at the intersection of policy and science to increase awareness of the possibilities of plant medicines. 

THE SRI FOUNDATION BOARD

Join the movement for quality research: donate to SRI Foundation and further groundbreaking science on natural plant/fungal therapies.