slimvictor
Bluelight Crew
Meet the Man Who Discovered Weed’s Secret Ingredient -
But he's against legalizing it because he got the boring slice of a magic cake in the '60s
When Raphael Mechoulam first asked the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a grant to research cannabis back in 1963, the top U.S. public health agency was quick to show him the door. “They told me, ‘Come back to us when you choose another subject—marijuana is not an American problem,’” the 84-year-old Israeli professor recalls.
More than half a century later—after becoming the first scientist to isolate THC, having a long, successful career dedicated to discovering cannabis and its effects on the body, and now being referred to in Israel as the “Grandfather of Marijuana”—professor Mechoulam still sounds a little proud when he mentions how fast the NIH changed its mind.
“One year after that initial rejection,” he says in an interview this week in his small office in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, surrounded by framed awards, “I got a call from the same official. Turns out, a U.S. senator’s son was caught smoking marijuana. The senator asked the NIH what effect it would have on his brain, and they were embarrassed to have done no research on the matter. He called to see what our group has done so far.”
“By that time,” Mechoulam continues, “we were lucky enough to isolate THC [the psycho-active ingredient in cannabis], so I invited him over.”
The discovery itself, he says, owes a great deal to Israel being a small country where everyone knows one another and where the rules are somewhat flexible. “Our administrative manager knew a guy from his army time who became a senior police officer. He called him and asked if we could get some Lebanese hashish from the storage rooms. Long story short, I went to Tel Aviv, had coffee with the guy and drove back on the bus with 5 kilos of hashish.”
cont at
http://www.vocativ.com/culture/science/raphael-mechoulam-thc-marijunana/
But he's against legalizing it because he got the boring slice of a magic cake in the '60s
When Raphael Mechoulam first asked the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a grant to research cannabis back in 1963, the top U.S. public health agency was quick to show him the door. “They told me, ‘Come back to us when you choose another subject—marijuana is not an American problem,’” the 84-year-old Israeli professor recalls.
More than half a century later—after becoming the first scientist to isolate THC, having a long, successful career dedicated to discovering cannabis and its effects on the body, and now being referred to in Israel as the “Grandfather of Marijuana”—professor Mechoulam still sounds a little proud when he mentions how fast the NIH changed its mind.
“One year after that initial rejection,” he says in an interview this week in his small office in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, surrounded by framed awards, “I got a call from the same official. Turns out, a U.S. senator’s son was caught smoking marijuana. The senator asked the NIH what effect it would have on his brain, and they were embarrassed to have done no research on the matter. He called to see what our group has done so far.”
“By that time,” Mechoulam continues, “we were lucky enough to isolate THC [the psycho-active ingredient in cannabis], so I invited him over.”
The discovery itself, he says, owes a great deal to Israel being a small country where everyone knows one another and where the rules are somewhat flexible. “Our administrative manager knew a guy from his army time who became a senior police officer. He called him and asked if we could get some Lebanese hashish from the storage rooms. Long story short, I went to Tel Aviv, had coffee with the guy and drove back on the bus with 5 kilos of hashish.”
cont at
http://www.vocativ.com/culture/science/raphael-mechoulam-thc-marijunana/
