Gupta worked on the documentary for over a year, traveling to places like Amsterdam where marijuana is used openly and other places where it’s medicinal properties are heralded. He says opening up to places where people had gone beyond the drug’s stigma to find its healing properties was eye-opening, particularly since Gupta had once been a fervent critic of marijuana use.
“If you were to search through scientific journals on marijuana, you’d find 20,000 articles. But the vast majority of them are designed to look at the harm. Very few people were looking at the benefits of it as a medicine.
What I found when I looked at other countries, particularly Israel, for example, they’ve been doing some amazing research. And they’ve gotten to a point where in hospitals and nursing homes, they will allow patients to use marijuana medicinally. I think there’s a lot to learn from the rest of the world.”
Gupta said his own experiences with marijuana left him anxious but that he now endorses it for medical reasons, especially given the amount of people who die from accidental prescription drug overdoses.
“No one I can find has died from an accidental marijuana overdose. This needs to be a serious discussion.”
It’s High Time: Dr. Sanjay Gupta Says Weed Can Be Good In New Doc was originally published on blackamericaweb.com
