Dr. Mahmoud A. ElSohly

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Cannabis Sativa L.:  An Old Plant With Much Renewed Interest

Dr. Mahmoud A. ElSohly, Research Professor in the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Professor of Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery, School of Pharmacy, The University of Mississippi

The Cannabis plant is one of the oldest medicinal plants known to man with uses dated back to over 5000 years. With the long history of the use of Cannabis for food, fiber, and as a medicine, the plant was put into Schedule I of the controlled substances act in the recent past in the USA and still is.

With the enactment of medical marijuana laws by many states, there is a renewed interest in the medicinal values of Cannabis, and many cannabis-derived products are now widely available for public use. It is important for healthcare providers to have a good understanding of this plant, its constituents and the complexity of its chemistry.

This presentation will cover an overview of the history of cannabis, its botanical and chemical aspects and some of the downsides of the availability of unregulated products on the market.

Dr. Mahmoud A. ElSohly is a Research Professor at The National Center for Natural Products Research, and Professor of Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery, School of Pharmacy, University of Mississippi (UM) and is the Director of theNational Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Marijuana Project at UM. He is also the President and Laboratory Director of ElSohly Laboratories Incorporated, an analytical forensic drug testing and product development laboratory.  He receivedhis undergraduate and Masters from Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt and his Ph.D. in 1975 from the University ofPittsburgh, School of Pharmacy, Pittsburgh, PA.  He has been with the University of Mississippi since 1975 and has been Director of the NIDA Marijuana Project since 1981 and has developed several cannabis derived products. He hasover 40 years’ experience working with the isolation of natural products (notably cannabis secondary metabolites),synthetic, analytical and forensic chemistry with over 40 patents and over 400 publications in these areas of science. Dr. ElSohly is a member of many professional organizations such as American Society of Pharmacognosy, American Chemical Society, American Academy of Forensic Sciences, Society of Forensic Toxicologist, International Cannabinoids Research Society, International Association of Cannabinoid Medicines to name a few and received numerous awards.  These include but not limited to Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Cannabinoids Research Society (ICRS), Special Award for his Major Contributions to the Re-introduction of Cannabis as a Medicine, from the IACM and Legacy Laureate Award from the University of Pittsburgh.