By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about the gruesome deaths of Rob and Michelle Reiner, allegedly at the hands of their drug-addicted son, Nick Reiner, 32. Nick Reiner struggled with drug addiction for many years, with both public and family acknowledgment of long-term substance use issues. His addiction reportedly began in early adolescence. He entered drug rehab around age 15 and cycled in and out of treatment many times, with family accounts suggesting more than 17 rehab stays over the years. Periods of homelessness reportedly occurred when he refused treatment, and Nick has publicly spoken about being homeless in multiple states during that time.
Nick, alongside his father Rob, co-wrote the semi-autobiographical screenplay Being Charlie, a film centered on a young man’s struggle with addiction and recovery. Rob Reiner described the 2015 film as “the most personal film that I’ve done.” The project was based on Nick’s real experiences and was intended to help both father and son better understand what Nick was going through.
In a 2015 interview promoting the film, Rob said about addiction, “There’s no end to it.” He explained that the issues behind addiction don’t simply vanish and that managing them is a lifelong process.
The movie begins with Charlie, portraying Nick, leaving rehab early, only to return home to an intervention. His parents confront him with a choice – return to rehab or live on the streets. Charlie clearly despises rehab and never feels it was beneficial.
In the same interview, Rob shared, “You don’t know what to do when your child is struggling with this, and you want to help them because your first charge as a parent is to keep your child safe. If you see them running into the street, you want to grab them before the truck hits them. So I didn’t know what to do, and I did what they told me. But what I’ve learned is that you know your child better, and I should have listened to my own gut more than what the experts were telling me.”
There is truth in what Rob expresses.
Recovery centers are money-making machines. I know this firsthand. I specialize in addiction. My internships involved working with addicts of all kinds – substance, gambling, porn, sex – all of it. The industry teaches that addiction is a disease. With disease comes diagnosis. With diagnosis comes prescriptions. With prescriptions, you become a forever patient.
Recovery is framed as a process, with relapse described as an expected part of that process. It is a cyclical pattern embedded in patients, so they accept that there is no escaping the disease – that there is no cure. Most detrimental of all is the insistence that addiction is not a choice.
Prior to leaving institutionalized corporate mental health altogether, I was hired as the Clinical Director for a substance abuse agency in Orange County, CA. I lasted one week. That was enough. Until then, I had primarily worked in client-facing roles. This position exposed what happens behind the scenes and the systemic deception used to keep insurance money flowing.
As a result, many of my views on addiction changed. It is not a disease. It is a choice.
It was with this understanding that I read President Trump’s executive order, Increasing Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research, with concern. The EO directs federal agencies to complete the rescheduling of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act, the law governing federal drug scheduling in the United States.
Marijuana has historically been placed in the most restrictive category of that system. Drugs in this category are treated as having no recognized medical value, a high likelihood of abuse, and no accepted standard for safe use under a physician’s care.
In 2023, however, federal health officials advised that marijuana no longer fit that description and recommended it be moved to a less restrictive classification. Substances in this lower tier are acknowledged to have legitimate medical applications, are considered less prone to abuse than the most tightly controlled drugs, and may carry risks of dependence, typically psychological and physical in more limited cases when misused.
Unfortunately, this assumption does not align with the data.
Marijuana is highly addictive, can cause significant psychological damage, and can stunt cognitive development.
Large-scale research directly contradicts the claim that marijuana poses a low risk for abuse or harm. A 2024 Nature Mental Health meta-analysis examining data from over 200,000 individuals across 162 studies found that 19.4% of cannabis users experienced psychotic symptoms, with rates exceeding 21% following THC exposure. Longitudinal cohort studies show that adolescents who use marijuana are 2 to 2.4 times more likely to later develop psychotic disorders, with risk increasing alongside frequency and potency of use.
Neuroimaging research published in JAMA Psychiatry identified elevated dopamine activity in individuals with Cannabis Use Disorder, a neurobiological pattern strongly associated with psychosis, along with measurable cognitive deficits and lower premorbid IQ among heavy users. Together, these findings challenge the narrative that marijuana is only mildly addictive or psychologically benign.
Although the recommendation from HHS supporting the EO may be rooted in a desire to help individuals suffering from severe pain, federal reclassification assumes reduced harm and abuse potential. The clinical literature tells a different story – one that consistently demonstrates dose-dependent risks for addiction, psychosis, and cognitive impairment, particularly among adolescents and heavy users.
Soad Tabrizi is a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice. Soad is also the founder of www.ConservativeCounselors.com.
