Manley West
Co-developed Canasol, a glaucoma treatment derived from cannabis
At a glance
- Inventor
- Manley West
- Life
- 1929–2012
- Birthplace
- Jamaica
- Country
- Jamaica
- Region
- Caribbean
- Era
- 1950–2000
- Fields
- Medicine & Health
- Evidence
- Documented
- Records
- 0 in this archive
What they did
Pharmacologist Manley West and ophthalmologist Albert Lockhart, at the University of the West Indies, isolated a compound from cannabis that reduces intraocular pressure, developed as the drug Canasol.
Historical context
West investigated a Jamaican folk observation that fishermen who used cannabis had unusually good night vision, and pursued it as a pharmacological question.
The legacy
An example of Caribbean pharmaceutical research taking traditional knowledge into controlled clinical development.
The evidence
Canasol research and patent records
Institutional record
Documentation strength
- 1
- Sources
- 0
- Primary
- 1
- Publishers
Calculated from the sources actually attached to this record — the closer a source sits to the original document, the more it counts. It is never asserted by hand.
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