Global Ganja Report

Raphael Mechoulam, the ground-breaking cannabis researcher who first isolated and identified THC in 1964, died in Israel at the age of 92. His passing was announced March 10 by Jerusalem's Hebrew University, where Mechoulam co-founded the Multidisciplinary Center for Cannabinoid Research in 2017.

Mechoulam also pioneered the study of the human body's own endocannabinoid system, which produces chemicals similar to THC to help regulate appetite, manage pain, and maintain the immune system.

Mechoulam was additionally a founding member of the International Association for Cannabinoid Medicines and the International Cannabinoid Research Society. In 1994, he was elected to be a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences & Humanities.

Born in Bulgaria, Mechoulam migrated to Israel with his family in 1949. He received his PhD at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, and pursued postdoctoral studies at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York, before joining the scientific staff of the Weizmann Institute.

Mechoulam was a strong advocate for lifting the limits on cannabis research internationally. The emering industry of medical cannabis "has to follow medical lines of thought and development and modern medical routes," he told the New York Times in 2017. "Israel has more [clinical trials] than the United States at the moment, which is ridiculous." (JTA)

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