to make the acquisition and possession of small amounts of cannabis exempt from punishment. Provided the German parliament approves the draft bill, the"Cannabis Act" will come into force next year. While some consider this move to be long overdue, others continue to warn strongly against the health risks of cannabis use.
The Jena researchers and their colleagues are now taking a different look at cannabis—at the traditional medicinal plant—with a study published in the journal. The team from the Institute of Pharmacy investigated how certain ingredients from the cannabis plant counteract inflammation. It was already known from previous studies that cannabis is not only an analgesic and an antispasmodic, but also has an anti-inflammatory effect.
"However, the reason for the anti-inflammatory effect was largely unclear until now," says Dr. Paul Mike Jordan, who led the study together with Prof. Oliver Werz., including the psychoactive THC and CBD , which is already found in freely available products today, act on human immune cells."We found that all eight cannabinoids we studied had anti-inflammatory effects," says Lukas Peltner, doctoral student and first author of the study.