Matt Ferner reports an exclusive interview with Dr. Sanjay Gupta in Sanjay Gupta Says Medical Marijuana Should Be Legalized Federally. CNN's Sanjay Gupta is taking his support for medical marijuana up a notch, now calling for federal legalization of medical marijuana, and denouncing our current system as an example of the triumph of "ideology of hard science."
He lists many reasons for his increasingly strong feelings, but says his first would be sufficient by itself, that of parents of children with seizure disorders becoming "medical refugees" in Colorado as they seek out Charlotte's Web. Charlotte's Web is a special strain that is high in cannabidiol, and low in THC that has proven to be the most effective treatment for the most severe forms of epilepsy.
"This refugee situation that is developing, I thought it would be a bit apocryphal, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being led down some false path -- but I met with these families and it is real," Gupta said of the hundreds of families who have uprooted themselves and moved to Colorado to take advantage of the state's permissive medical marijuana laws. ... "Are you really going to arrest a person for taking their medicine back to their state?" Gupta said. "This is not the society that I think most people would think we are and yet it's absolutely happening. It's heartbreaking. The idea that people are able to get their cannabis medicine in one state, but not another, defies some of the core principles of our medical system, which strives for an equality of health care in terms of options."
Dr. Gupta objects to marijuana being listed as a Schedule I drug under federal law, along with LSD and herion, which signifies that there are no medically accepted uses. Gupta says marijuana doesn't meet the criteria for Schedule and it never did. But, because it is on this list it is extremely difficult for scientists and doctors to get funding and other approval for research. Also, this is by the Department of Justice under the Obama administration continues to raid the medical marijuana dispensaries that are legal under in 20 states.
Gupta says:
"If you think about this whole story and you substitute in another medicine, other than marijuana, into that exact same story, it would be an outrage -- people would be up in arms about it," Gupta said, referring to the federal government's raids of state-legal medical marijuana dispensaries. "It flies in the face of what I think many state and federal politicians have telegraphed, in terms of the fact that they wouldn't behave this way on this issue and yet it's still happening. For me the real problem is, at the end of the day, it’s of course terrible that these guys are going to prison, but that's exacerbated by the patients out there now that aren't able to get what they need because of it."
"This hypocrisy conjures up for me when I was in medical school, some of our first lessons revolved around when politics or religion trumped science and how dangerous that was," Gupta said. "And I think that's what's happening here -- you have politics trumping science. In past situations, it may have been the position of the Earth in the universe. But now it is real people, their lives, their illnesses in the middle of this. It's incredibly sad.”
I agree with everything he says he, and support full legalization as well, but that is a different post.
Dr. Gupta's program "Weed 2: Cannabis Madness will be broadcast on Tuesday at 10 p.m. EST, March 11 on CNN.