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The Medicalization of Cannabis

2010; Wiley; Volume: 71; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1365-2125.2010.03841.x

1365-2125

David M. Wood,

Psychedelics and Drug Studies

The Medicalization of Cannabis Edited by S M Crowther, L A Reynolds and E M Tansey . Published by The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College of London , London, UK , 2010 . 106 pp, ISBN: 978-085484-129-5 The ‘History of Twentieth Century Medicine Group’ was established by the Wellcome Trust in 1990 to bring together ‘clinicians, scientists, historians and others interested in contemporary medical history’. Over time, and with the support of the Wellcome Trust, this group has evolved into the current ‘Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine’. This Centre, similar to that of the initially established group, brings together key interested individuals in one area of medicine to discuss and debate that particular area. These sessions are not simply a review of the published literature, but more importantly they are based on the individual's memories and personal experiences at the time. These discussions and debates are then published as a ‘Witness Seminar’, which is free to download from the Wellcome Trust website. This latest one, ‘The Medicalization of Cannabis’ is the 40th Witness Seminar to be published and is based on the discussions of 16 participants and the co-chairs Professor Virginia Berridge and Professor Tilli Tansey. The majority of clinical pharmacologists and other readers of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology will have some understanding and knowledge of the pharmacological actions of cannabis. This witness statement, based on the discussions and debates held, details the key discoveries in the history of cannabis from the identification of THC as the active ingredient of cannabis, through the characterization of the CB1 and CB2 cannabinoid receptors, to the licensing in Canada of the sublinguinal herbal cannabis extract for use in patients with multiple sclerosis. There is also discussion about the potential future of cannabis and its role in medicine. In addition to these significant events in the development of our understanding of cannabis and its potential medical uses, the witness seminar is made more interesting by those involved discussing their personal experiences in relation to these events. This provides a much greater insight into the cannabis research that has been undertaken than can ever be gleaned from reading published peer-reviewed papers. In particular, there are several references to serendipitous events, not only within the scientific field but also elsewhere in the public and political fields, which have significantly directed the research that has been undertaken on cannabis. It becomes apparent to the reader that without these events, we may not be where we are today with cannabis, both from a medical and political perspective. We are all aware that there is a lot more involved in our own areas of research than is reported in the papers that we publish in peer-reviewed journals and present at national and international meetings. The majority of the more personal insights into our own areas of research are often never discussed. In the Witness Seminars series, the Wellcome Trust attempts to document some of these personal experiences alongside the previously well documented published literature, so that this information is not lost with time. Reading this short Witness Seminar will remind all of us of our own trials and tribulations in regards to our own research, and also that for many of us the smallest opportunistic event or discovery can shape our own careers and that of many others in the future.