Ganja Gupta

Sanjay Gupta is probably just about the most famous doctor there is in real life.  In January, 2009, at the beginning of Obama’s first term, he was suggested as a possible candidate for Surgeon General, which is a position I’m not sure there’s any real use for except maybe to bitch at everybody for smoking too much and eating junk food.  He turned it down, which I thought was kind of a dick move at the time.  Sure, symbolic position and all, but it’s like cabinet level, he’d have been invited to dinners at the White House and stuff.   It was like turning down an Oscar, or a Knighthood if you’re English.  Pretty arrogant of him, I thought, but I’m sure he was making more money as the medical consultant for CNN, plus his teaching jobs, writing books, and any occasional real doctoring he does.

420 on the lawn, dude

To tell the truth, I don’t even know who is Surgeon General at the moment.  Somebody a lot less famous than Sanjay Gupta, apparently.

So, it’s pretty significant that he came out today and said “Hey, I’m sorry I’ve been so down on marijuana forever, I just kind of figured since it was illegal they must have their reasons but now that I’ve actually looked into it a bit, maybe it isn’t all that horrible.”

I’m glad he’s come around, I’m glad he’s on our side now, but I’m not buying his bullshit.  He’s undoubtedly an intelligent man, he’s a doctor, he’s a man of science, he’s written books.  He’s just now realizing that marijuana is not the devil’s weed?  Hadn’t he read any of the studies which have been done over the last 50 years or so?

I’m sure he had, but his job as big, important doctor who gets to go on all the TV talk shows probably depended on not being a hippie radical, so he occasionally had to say bad things about marijuana.

Now, the medical benefits are becoming overwhelmingly obvious.  They will continue to become more and more obvious as people in those states where it’s legal to prescribe the sacred herb of Jah get cured of more and more stuff.  I know anecdotal evidence is not quite statistical evidence, but we’re reading stories about miracle cures almost every day, and they add up.

So, the “experts” are starting to shift.  As long as they make a clean breast of it and a nice apology like Dr. Gupta, good on ’em and welcome aboard.  Because certainly, everybody who continues to fight against marijuana and it’s legalization are just flat out lying about its negative effects.  We know it, they know it, and they know we know they know it.  I’m looking at you, Barack Obama.