Legal access to cannabis in Spain, where the plant remains in a legal gray zone, is still a ways over the horizon, but medical patients in country are hopeful change is underway. Developments such as a new national observatory centered on medical applications of cannabinoids and initiatives like the CannabMed conference in Barcelona are adding to the country’s cannabis knowledge base, empowering patients and health care professionals, and highlighting the need for reform of medical cannabis legislation.

José-Carlos Bouso, a pharmacologist,, psychologist and scientific director of International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Science (ICEERS), together with other top scientists and researchers, has created the Spanish Observatory on Medical Cannabis (OECM, Observatorio Español del Cannabis Medicinal). The organization counts among its honorary members a number of top cannabis scientists, such as Raphael Mechoulam, who first isolated and later synthesized tetrahydrocannabinol (THC); Dr. Franjo Grotenhermen, Germany’s leading medical cannabis authority; and...