A little over a week ago, Dr. Sanjay Gupta aired a one hour CNN special on medical marijuana. The impact of his special and an op-ed that he wrote for CNN – where he apologized for his past opposition to medical marijuana – has been incredible!
In the run-up to Gupta’s CNN special, his op-ed made national news and was shared more than half a million times on Facebook. Just a few years ago, he came out against medical marijuana. Yet in his op-ed he expressed regret for not studying the issue more closely and for believing the government’s propaganda.
Dr. Gupta’s show also played a critical role in improving New Jersey’s medical marijuana law. A major focus of the special is a young girl who needs medical marijuana to relieve her constant, debilitating seizures. Coincidently, there is legislation under consideration in New Jersey to expand its medical marijuana law so that minors can access it. The issue was sympathetically covered by Gupta, and within days, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was being asked about the legislation. Just a few days later Christie committed to signing it.
The latest manifestation of Gupta’. . . . . READ MORE
CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta says he regrets his past stance on weed. Gupta, who previously opposed legalizing marijuana, says he’s woken up and smelled the proverbial plant life.
“I apologize because I didn’t look hard enough, until now. I didn’t look far enough,” he wrote in a CNN article. “I didn’t review papers from smaller labs in other countries doing some remarkable research, and I was too dismissive of the loud chorus of legitimate patients whose symptoms improved on cannabis.”
Marijuana was made illegal after assistant Health Secretary Roger Egeberg wrote a letter in 1970, pointing to a “considerable void in our knowledge” about marijuana and that the U.S. should wait to legalize it until there was enough research to “resolve the issue.”
So marijuana was made illegal because of the lack of sound science — but, as Gupta points out, it’s hard to do research in the United States on cannabis when it’s already illegal. And though a fair amount of work is done — more than 20,000 papers just recently, Gupta noted — just 6% of the studies Gupta counted up look at the potential benefits. The re. . . . . READ MORE