Ziva Cooper

I woke up like it was Christmas morning.

And this is obviously a very hot topic for so many people in so many states and countries.

But can you walk me back a little bit about like your history when you started studying cannabis?

I know that's a broad question, but let's just start with the basics.

But-

Dr. Cooper says it's very difficult as one might imagine to just willy nilly give people drugs with known and potentially deadly side effects in an ethical manner.

Review boards are like, that's a no, I fear.

But it got her so excited about applying some animal models to the human neuroscience that could lead to ethical trials to improve public health and impact policy in a

Since many laws are ideally based on solid peer-reviewed studies, how does the research really reflect what is harmful and what's helpful?

What an exciting dilemma thought the future Dr. Cooper.

So a decade ago, at least in the U.S., policy was like, yeah, man, go for it.

But science was a little lacking at the time.

And again, back in 2007, a handful, just 12 states, had legalized cannabis for medical use.

And as a Los Angelino, where we have this thing called Cali sober, and it means you don't drink, but like weed, mushrooms, fine.

This was news to me that currently weed is illegal in most of the world.

I was like, what?

In Canada, though, in Germany, South Africa, Luxembourg, a few other countries, and in 24 of the United States, you can get it for recreational use.

In Amsterdam, they have cafes where one can blaze.

But it was not always so.

There have been various crackdowns and taxes, a lot of campaigns for prohibition based in really racist and xenophobic ideologies.