The 13% Scandal
Why medical schools don't teach the endocannabinoid system.
The Wizard Behind the Curtain
Inside you is the most sophisticated regulatory system in biology—the endocannabinoid system. It's the master controller of homeostasis.
The endocannabinoid system (ECS) was discovered in 1992. It's the largest receptor system in your body. It regulates virtually every physiological process—mood, appetite, pain, inflammation, memory, reproduction, sleep. And yet...
This is the 13% scandal. The most important regulatory system in human biology is taught in only 13% of medical schools. Dr. Bob called the ECS "the wizard behind the curtain"—the master regulator that controls all other systems.
Here's what makes the endocannabinoid system unique: it signals backwards.
In normal neurotransmission, signals flow from the presynaptic neuron to the postsynaptic neuron—one direction. But endocannabinoids are produced by the postsynaptic neuron and travel backwards to regulate the presynaptic neuron.
This is called retrograde transmission, and it's revolutionary. It means the receiving cell can tell the sending cell to slow down, speed up, or change what it's sending.
In 2013, a five-year-old girl named Charlotte Figi was having 300 seizures per week. She had Dravet syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy. Nothing worked.
Her parents, desperate, tried a high-CBD cannabis extract. Charlotte's seizures dropped from 300 per week to 2-3 per month.
Charlotte's story changed the conversation about cannabis medicine. The strain that helped her was renamed "Charlotte's Web" in her honor.
Continue your journey through the Far From Equilibrium framework.
View All Pillars →Despite being discovered in the 1990s, the ECS is rarely taught in medical schools. This is partly due to the stigma around cannabis research and partly because it challenges the pharmaceutical model of treating symptoms rather than supporting the body's own regulatory systems.
Endocannabinoids are molecules your body produces naturally that bind to cannabinoid receptors. The two main ones are anandamide (the 'bliss molecule') and 2-AG. They regulate everything from mood and pain to inflammation and appetite.
Cannabis contains phytocannabinoids like THC and CBD that interact with the same receptors as your endocannabinoids. THC mimics anandamide, while CBD works more indirectly to enhance your body's own endocannabinoid signaling.