Norman John Doorenbos
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| Norman John Doorenbos | |
|---|---|
| Born | 13 May 1928 Flint, Michigan, United States |
| Died | 22 April 2006 Meridian |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Medicinal chemist and pharmacognosist |
| Institutions | University of Michigan; University of Maryland; University of Mississippi; Southern Illinois University; University of Wisconsin; Auburn University |
| Known for | The 1968 federal marijuana contract at the University of Mississippi |
Norman John Doorenbos (13 May 1928 – 22 April 2006) was an American medicinal chemist who chaired the Department of Pharmacognosy at the University of Mississippi from 1966 and taught there until 1977.[1] In 1968 he applied for and won a contract from the National Institute of Mental Health to provide standardised marijuana for researchers. The contract began the university's cultivation of Cannabis sativa for research, which continued into the 21st century.[2] He ended his career as dean of the graduate school at Auburn University.[1]
Steroid chemistry
Doorenbos was born in Flint, Michigan. He took a PhD in medicinal chemistry at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and held his first academic post there. He moved to the University of Maryland, where he built up a well-funded research programme on heterocyclic steroids with doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows. In 1965 Charles Hartman, dean of the University of Mississippi's School of Pharmacy, recruited him to Mississippi. In an article of 2004 Doorenbos recalled that he had not been eager to leave Maryland, but that Hartman was persuasive.[1]
Pharmacognosy at Mississippi
In 1966 his appointment at Mississippi was extended to make him professor and chair of the Department of Pharmacognosy. Charles Hufford, one of his recruits, credited him with creating the department. The faculty he helped to recruit also included Michael Corbett, Maynard Quimby, Larry Robertson and Paul Schiff. His projects there included work on sumac and an economic botany garden.[1] The garden began in 1965, when Doorenbos started to study the chemistry of some native plants. Quimby enlarged it after he joined the department in 1967. It later became the Maynard W. Quimby Medicinal Plant Garden.[3]
The marijuana contract
In 1968 a programme committee of the National Institute of Mental Health offered a contract to provide standardised marijuana for researchers. Doorenbos applied for it and won it. The first experimental plot was grown on university land that year, from seed of Mexico, Panama, Southeast Asia, Korea, India, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Lebanon. In 1969 a secured garden was built for the first substantial crop. A further plot was planted that year on university forest land in southern Mississippi.[2]
Anthony Haden-Guest, reporting on the project for High Times in 1976, wrote that the programme had been drawn up for the institute by Coy Waller, later director of the university's research institute. In his account Doorenbos was put in charge of it at Mississippi. Haden-Guest reported early problems with security and unwelcome publicity. He wrote that Doorenbos's flair for catching headlines did not help, and that after an article in Rolling Stone Doorenbos "resigned". Carlton E. Turner, a chemist who joined the project in June 1970 after meeting Doorenbos, was made its director in 1971.[4]: 59–61
Doorenbos was a co-author of the project's first papers on its plants. In 1971 a report led by P. S. Fetterman described nine strains grown by the university from seed obtained from Iowa, Minnesota, Mexico, Turkey, Italy, France and Sweden.[5] The same year he was first author, with Fetterman, Quimby and Turner, of a paper on the cultivation, extraction and analysis of the crop in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.[6] He was also a co-author of Quimby's paper of 1973 in Economic Botany on the cultivation and observed variation in form of Mississippi-grown marihuana.[7] His former student David Slatkin said that he was committed to reducing illicit drug use among children.[1]
Later career
Doorenbos left Mississippi in 1977, after 12 years. He later held posts at Southern Illinois University and the University of Wisconsin. In 1986 he went to Auburn as dean of the graduate school and stayed there for the rest of his academic career. He wrote hundreds of research papers and supervised more than 60 doctoral students.[1] He was president of the Society for Economic Botany in the 1970s.[8][9] He died at the Rush Foundation Hospital in Meridian on 22 April 2006, aged 77. He was survived by his wife, Judy, a son, six daughters and two stepdaughters.[1]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Kennelly, Edward J. (Fall 2007). "In memoriam: Norman Doorenbos" (PDF). The ASP Newsletter. Vol. 43, no. 3. American Society of Pharmacognosy. p. 23.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "History". Marijuana Research. School of Pharmacy, University of Mississippi. Archived from the original on 24 January 2026. Retrieved 8 October 2026.
- ↑ Kirkland, Logan (22 April 2013). "Medicinal Garden formally dedicated to its developer". The Daily Mississippian. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ Haden-Guest, Anthony (November 1976). "The garden". High Times. No. 15. p. 59 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Fetterman, P.S.; Keith, E.S.; Waller, C.W.; Guerrero, O.; Doorenbos, N.J.; Quimby, M.W. (August 1971). "Mississippi-grown Cannabis sativa L.: preliminary observation on chemical definition of phenotype and variations in tetrahydrocannabinol content versus age, sex, and plant part". Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences. 60 (8): 1246–1249. doi:10.1002/jps.2600600832. PMID 5127101.
- ↑ Doorenbos, N.J.; Fetterman, P.S.; Quimby, M.W.; Turner, C.E. (December 1971). "Cultivation, extraction, and analysis of Cannabis sativa L.". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 191 (1): 3–14. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1971.tb13982.x.
- ↑ Quimby, M.W.; Doorenbos, N.J.; Turner, C.E.; Masoud, A. (1973). "Mississippi-grown marihuana: Cannabis sativa cultivation and observed morphological variations". Economic Botany. 27 (1): 117–127. doi:10.1007/BF02862224. JSTOR 4253396.
- ↑ "Society officers". The Society for Ethnobotany. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ "Current and past SEB presidents (1959–present)". Society for Economic Botany. Retrieved 12 October 2026.