Marijuana is one of the most important medical discoveries of our time. We have many distinguished scientists to thank for that discovery, as well as the activists who fought to legalize medical marijuana. But we should also thank the smugglers. Surprisingly, one of the smugglers also turns out to be the most distinguished cannabis scientist of all.
Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, who passed away on March 9 at 92, was the undisputed father of cannabis research.
Before discovering the Endocannabinoid System, the largest neurotransmitter system in the body, or cannabinoids like THC and CBD, or finding that they can help relieve pain and nausea, control seizures and shrink tumors, Dr. Mechoulam began his career sitting on a bus in Israel with 5 pounds of smuggled Lebanese hashish on his lap. Within minutes, people around him began asking the ever-popular question, what’s that smell?
Luckily, he got away with it. At the time he
didn’t know he was committing a crime. Neither did the policeman who gave him the hash. Nor did the Director of the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, who referred him to his old army buddy at the police station.
They immediately straightened things out and from then on, over a nice cup of coffee, Dr. Mechoulam applied for a permit from the Ministry of Health to score hash from the cops.
It’s the politics of contraband. And it’s definitely the smuggler’s blues, because the hashish in Israeli police custody had been tossed over a border wall by Lebanese smugglers. And so it came to pass that the time-honored tradition of smuggling pot begat one of the most important medical discoveries of our time.
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