Medical marijuana and 'the entourage effect' - By Dr. Sanjay Gupta [View all]

[bananas]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/11/health/gupta-marijuana-entourage/index.html

Medical marijuana and 'the entourage effect'
By Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN chief medical correspondent
updated 1:58 PM EDT, Tue March 11, 2014

Don't miss "Weed 2: Cannabis Madness: Dr. Sanjay Gupta Reports" at 10 p.m. ET Tuesday. Also, Gupta will be answering your questions on Reddit at noon ET.

(CNN) -- In the early 1960s, a young postdoctoral student stumbled onto something that puzzled him.

After reading the literature on cannabis, he was surprised to see that while the active compound in morphine had been isolated from opium poppies 100 years before and cocaine isolated from coca leaves around the same time, the active component of marijuana was still unknown.

This simple observation launched his life's work.

<snip>

It was halfway through our long afternoon discussion that Mechoulam, now 83, pulled out a paper he had written in 1999, describing something known as "the entourage effect."

Think of it like this: There are more than 480 natural components found within the cannabis plant, of which 66 have been classified as "cannabinoids." Those are chemicals unique to the plant, including delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiols. There are, however, many more, including:

<snip long list>

Here is the important point. Mechoulam, along with many others, said he believes all these components of the cannabis plant likely exert some therapeutic effect, more than any single compound alone.

While science has not yet shown the exact role or mechanism for all these various compounds, evidence is mounting that these compounds work better together than in isolation: That is the "entourage effect."

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Saw this in LBN with the mysterious subject line "Article title"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014751912