#3: The Endocannabinoid System

opposite. But these websites can help
educate us on the basics of whichever
disease we are researching. They
can become an excellent source of
fundamental information.
There are also some very good
websites that specialize in medical
cannabis information at every level of
understanding from beginner to the
seasoned activist. Explore as many
as you have the time for. Simply type
“medical cannabis” in your browser
and take your pick.
Be sure to make use of your browser’s
Bookmark feature. Bookmarks
provide a means of organizing our
information into folders, just as
we have done for years with those
manila, tab-cut folders that went into
the file drawers. Web bookmarks are
the equivalent of this. When you see
an article you want to retain you click
Bookmarks in the menu and then
select which folder to add it to. There
is no right or wrong way to name
folders so don’t get hung up on that.
Organize it so that you will
know where to go to find the
information later.
Once you have become acquainted
with the specifics of your disease you
may then want to start looking for
scientific articles. Now, some of these
articles can be really technical and,
frankly, unreadable by the lay person.
Most scientific articles, however,
have what is called an “Abstract”
that will briefly describe the research
and the conclusion. For most people
this is all you need to read. You will
also find that printing out a copy of
the Abstract and giving it to your
healthcare professionals may help
educate them too.
By the way, consider using Google
Scholar when you start looking for
more detailed scientific research.
Google Scholar limits its search
to scientific journals, government
documents and the like. There are no
advertisements but be advised that
many sites will charge you to read the
full article. However, as mentioned
above, the Abstract will normally
give you the full story and it is
displayed free of charge.
Make your search as specific as
you can and include your disease
category. For example, search for
“glaucoma and medical cannabis.”
Cannabis is the preferred term to use
and most scientific articles will use
this proper botanical term. But it
is also interesting to do a search for
“glaucoma and medical marijuana,”
just to see the difference in
what appears.
Learning as much as we can about
the medicines that we use is good
practice whether the drug is a
conventional prescription or medical
cannabis. As Heather Davis notes in
22