Our dear friend and colleague Tomáš Zábranský passed away recently. He was world-known and respected in the international medical community, thanks to his efforts in cannabis research and legalisation. Graduated from the Medical Faculty of Palacky University, Olomouc in 1993 (M.D.); he received his Ph.D in epidemiology, hygiene, and preventive medicine from the same university in 2001. In 2003-4, he was an H. H. Humphrey/NIDA Research Fellow at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA, professionally affiliated with the Center for Drug Policy Research of the RAND Corp. think-tank. He advocated for the legalization of medical cannabis in the Czech Republic, and helped push through the Medical Cannabis Act in the Czech Parliament. Since 2014, he has served as Advisor on Drug Policy to the Czech Prime Minister and as the Envoy of the Czech Minister of Health for the Implementation of Medical Cannabis into the Czech Medical System and for Illegal Drug Issues. Tomáš worked as an expert in drug epidemiology and monitoring of the drug situation in numerous UN and EU projects. In 2015, he was elected by the EU Parliament as an (Independent) Member of the Management Board of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Addictions. Also in 2015, he organized Medical Cannabis Conference, an international gathering of scientists, politicians, activist, businessmen and patients - thus created a discussion platform, which helped to push through his main goal - to make cannabis medicine available to everybody in need. Words cannot express how much we will miss him.

More... Less...