FROM CANNABIS TO ENDOCANNABINOIDS — FROM ANCIENT TO PRESENT MEDICAL USE

The lecture deals with the history of the use of cannabis as a medicine in the course of millennia. It describes the way leading to the discovery of the psychoactive compound (tetrahydrocannabinol) in cannabis. Consequently, efforts to clarify the effects of cannabis in the body, which led to the discovery of cannabinoid receptors and consequently to the body’s own compounds, called endocannabinoids, which mimick the cannabinoid effects in the body is explained. Present cannabis use in medicine is shown on the therapeutic use of cannabis in Israel.