Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Marijuana and Weed - An Egregiously Disappointing Program

Marijuana helps many diseases.



Salem-News.com



(PORTLAND, Ore.) - All of the hullabaloo advertising Dr. Gupta’s apology for maligning marijuana (cannabis) left a sour taste in the mouth of everybody who knew anything about marijuana. He says, “I had steadily reviewed the scientific literature on medical marijuana and thought it was fairly unimpressive.” This is an outright fraud. Even a high school Junior knows better than that.

In his own country, India, it has been used as medicine for about 3,000 years. He is supposed to be a scientist, as well as a physician. How can I, or anyone else, accept his apology about marijuana?

He had an anti-marijuana program in January 2013, in which he lambasted marijuana as medicine and bleating about its dangers but never specifying what the dangers were. I posted my critique Medical Marijuana: Drs. Oz and Gupta: Misinformed Doctors, Salem-News.com Jan 16 2013.

I will honor him for introducing two extremely damaged patients. One, a three-year old, Charlotte Figi, with having almost continuous seizures but which were almost totally controlled by using marijuana, which is possibly the BEST anti-seizure medicine but represents only about 1% of marijuana patients.

Another patient, a young man about 20-years old, had a rare spasm condition of his diaphragm which seriously interfered with his breathing and speech. A few puffs of medical marijuana and it was gone for at least three hours.

Dr. Gupta has failed, on any occasion where I heard him, to speak, or even mention the greatest benefits of medical marijuana. At least 70% of patients use it safely and effectively for pain. About 20% use it successfully for spasm conditions such as multiple sclerosis and also for the young man mentioned above. Former combat veterans and others have found it better for PTSD than any other medication. For nausea and vomiting of cancer, HIV/AIDS and chemotherapy, it is better than any other medication. There are too many more examples to list.

Dr. Gupta had a misplaced temerity to have Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) as a spokesperson. She compares marijuana to METH and COKE! She has been so seriously disregarded as having no factual information, that even Dr. Gupta should have seen it.

Jamison Monroe, founder of the Newport Academy in California, who treats adolescents for drug abuse, also had nothing good to say about marijuana. There are others, but obviously the general public knows more about medical marijuana than they do.

Anti-marijuana complainers are always yammering about the dangers of marijuana, comparing marijuana to other drugs. They need to get to know the facts. The CDC (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the national public health institute of the United States) publishes the following death statistics per year:

Prescription drugs: 237,485

Tobacco: 81, 323

Alcohol: 23,199

For marijuana, in any form, the deaths have been: 0 (ZERO)

CNN which sponsored and showed Dr. Gupta’s apology, indicates that as of 8/13/2013, the program had 27,579 comments. Many thanked Dr. Gupta for the program, but many were complaining that his focus was too fine and should have mentioned other uses of marijuana. I’m with them.

BELIEVE IN MARIJUANA! IT’S HERE TO STAY!

HERE IS THE PROGRAM OF WHICH I SPEAK, SEE FOR YOURSELF:

Got a question or comment for Dr. Leveque?

Email him: Newsroom@Salem-News.com

More information on the history of Dr. Leveque can be found in his book, General Patton's Dogface Soldier of WWII about his own experiences "from a foxhole".

Order the book by mail by following this link: Dogface Soldier

If you are a World War II history buff, you don't want to miss it.

Watch for more streaming video question and answer segments about medical marijuana with Bonnie King and Dr. Phil Leveque.

Click on this link for other articles and video segments about PTSD and medical marijuana on Salem-News.com: Dr. Leveque INTERVIEWS & ARTICLES