Israeli medicine goes to pot
Israel has one of the most progressive medical marijuana programs in the world
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Israel’s inroads into legalizing cannabis for pain relief and managing terminal illness rest on the seminal research of Prof. Raphael Mechoulam of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem’s Center for Research on Pain. Back in 1964, working from bags of hashish seized by the local police, Mechoulam isolated the active compound from cannabis, THC. He came to be a trusted consultant on the topic to governments and individuals and urged that derivative compounds called cannabinoids be legalized for medical purposes in Israel.