For ages, cultures all over the world have recognized the medicinal value of cannabinoids and they were widely used that way in the USA until about 1937. Yet in recent years, both medicinal and recreational cannabinoids have become a growth industry. How, why, and when things changed is beyond the scope of this article, which instead discusses some of the scientific considerations of formulating cannabinoids into tablets and capsules.
As you probably know, the human body has endocannabinoid receptors that respond to phytocannabinoids and synthetic cannabinoids. The market seems to have similar receptors because today cannabinoids are a big growth industry in the USA, one many people liken to the Wild West. That is an interesting analogy and somewhat true. There are good guys—that’s us on the pharma side—and outlaws. Several high-tech companies are providing excellent products with filed intellectual
property to support them. The outlaws include black market actors and fly-by-night peddlers of formulations made without scientific work and promoted with false claims. In addition, the regulations governing the industry vary from state to state.
So the cannabis industry is a hybrid, growing where the nutraceutical and pharma markets overlap and where regulations conflict. That suits me because I like to be where the action or growth is, so after 25-plus years working in mainstream pharma, I leapt into the world of cannabis. I now work for a company that is striving to make better products that are proven by science in order to secure market
share. What follows is some of what I’ve learned.