Editorial.

Abstract

After having been involved for more than 40 years in natural products research, for me Cannabis sativa still is the most fascinating plant in any respect, which is as multifaceted as the bee’s eye. No other plant is so unique and diverse, reflected for example by its millennial history as ethnobotanical plant, its complex phytochemistry with more than 500 identified constituents, its amazing polypharmacology, and its controversial reputation in the public, media, and politics, either as stigmatized dope head marijuana or as mystified panacea. Nowadays, the term “medical cannabis” is largely rehabilitated and, besides “medical cannabinoids”, officially well accepted in the scientific community as a label of many international conferences or title of the present new journal, and more and more also by regulatory authorities in Europe and elsewhere. This paradigm change can be explained by increasing preclinical and clinical data showing the potential of cannabis as phytopharmaceutical; however, not negating the fact that this plant still is the most abused illicit drug worldwide. The hits in PubMed are a mirror of exploding cannabis and cannabinoid research in the last 25 years compared to the 25 years before 1992: “cannabis” 12,894 (4,645), “cannabis + medicine” 3,378 (281), “tetrahydrocannabinol” 5,353 (2,990), “cannabidiol” 1,564 (373), and “cannabidiol + medicine” 502 (20). Even more striking are the number of references for “endocannabinoids”, 4,429 (8), and “endocannabinoid system”, 1,785 (0), discovered in the late 1980s and early 1990s, respectively. In this context, it has to be noted that Big Pharma nowadays prefers to invest money in the search for endocannabinoid modulators and less in the development of cannabis-based medicines. For decades, cannabidiol (CBD) was the main cannabinoid of fiber-type cannabis shaded by tetrahydrocannabinol and not often in the focus of pharmacologists. The increasing scientific interest in CBD during the last 25 years as the most promising candidate for clinical utilization can be explained by its lack of any cognitive and psychoactive actions and its plethora of effects. Today, for many patients, CBD means hope, despite very few convincing clinical studies, whereas recreational consumers classify CBD only as lifestyle drug or food supplement. These two controversial points of views are additionally triggered by media headlines emphasizing CBD to be a unique antiepileptic drug and aggressive marketing of CBD producers and suppliers. Whether the therapeutic use of cannabinoids in the form of pure substances or as complex cannabis-based medicines should be preferred is not always rationally debated, especially among patients (“God’s pharmacy”), Rudolf Brenneisen