Every superintendent and Board of Education in New Jersey faces the same challenge: put limited resources where they can have the greatest impact: students, teachers, paraprofessionals, counselors, special education, academic programs, technology, transportation, and school safety.
But another expense is competing for those same dollars: healthcare.
New Jersey’s 2027 School Employees’ Health Benefits Program rate-setting analysis projects a 34.4% total premium increase for Local Education active employees. The State identifies medical and prescription-drug trends, increased utilization, specialty pharmaceuticals and other factors contributing to that pressure.
When healthcare consumes more of a district’s budget, fewer dollars remain available for education.
Healthcare costs are education costs.
But what if we are asking the wrong question?
Instead of only asking, “How much will healthcare cost next year?” school districts should also ask: “What is driving our healthcare spending—and are there better ways to improve health?”
That conversation should include innovation.
We are at a pivotal moment in healthcare. Chronic pain, behavioral-health conditions and chronic illness contribute to medical and prescription utilization, disability and absenteeism. Yet our benefit systems often continue paying for the same treatment pathways even when some patients are not achieving adequate outcomes.
Emerging evidence suggests alternative therapeutics deserve serious consideration as part of a broader continuum of care.
A 2026 analysis from Management Science Associates used linked electronic health records, medical claims and cannabis-dispensary data to examine medical-cannabis patients across multiple states. Researchers observed a 30–53% reduction in opioid prescriptions following cannabis initiation, a 27–29% reduction in sleep-medication use, and a 16% lower benzodiazepine dose among Pennsylvania cannabis users compared with non-users.
These findings do not establish that cannabis caused those reductions; MSA expressly states that further research is necessary to establish causality. The Economic Impact of Cannabis… But they raise an important economic and healthcare question: Could appropriate medical-cannabis access help some patients improve outcomes while reducing reliance on higher-cost or higher-risk medications?
New Jersey already recognizes medical cannabis for qualifying conditions that include chronic pain, anxiety, PTSD, migraine, multiple sclerosis, opioid use disorder and seizure disorders.
And cannabis is not the only innovation worth examining.
Clinician-directed ketamine-based care is being used for certain treatment-resistant behavioral-health and chronic-pain patients, while FDA-approved Spravato® (esketamine) provides another treatment pathway for eligible patients. As evidence evolves, other therapeutics may eventually become part of this changing healthcare landscape.
The answer is not to replace conventional medicine with alternative medicine.
The opportunity is to build a better continuum of care.
Imagine a health plan capable of identifying patients struggling with chronic pain or behavioral-health conditions, connecting them to clinically appropriate conventional or alternative treatment pathways, and then measuring what happens next.
Did prescription utilization change? Did emergency visits decline? Did clinical outcomes improve? Did absenteeism or disability change? And ultimately: Did better health produce measurable economic value?
For a district spending $20 million annually on healthcare, a 1% improvement represents $200,000; 2% represents $400,000; and 5% represents $1 million. These are illustrations, not promised savings.
Innovation should never mean abandoning evidence or clinical oversight. It should mean being willing to evaluate new evidence, measure outcomes and evolve when better approaches emerge.
Before cutting another position or student program to absorb rising healthcare costs, districts should first understand what is driving those costs—and whether innovation can change the trajectory.
Your next budget decision should start with your data.
And the future of healthcare should leave room for innovation.
Nichelle Santos is the CEO of CannaCoverage Insurance Services
