Substances
PT484 – Seeing Through the Smoke: The Importance of Telling the Truth About Cannabis
February 6, 2024
Featuring: Dr. Peter Grinspoon
In this episode, Joe interviews Dr. Peter Grinspoon: primary care physician and cannabis specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, TedX speaker, certified physician life coach, and author of the new book, Seeing Through the Smoke: A Cannabis Expert Untangles the Truth about Marijuana.
In this episode, Joe interviews Dr. Peter Grinspoon: primary care physician and cannabis specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, TedX speaker, certified physician life coach, and author of the new book, Seeing Through the Smoke: A Cannabis Expert Untangles the Truth about Marijuana.
He tells his story of growing up in a house where academics like John Mack and Carl Sagan regularly smoked cannabis, and being inspired by the groundbreaking books of his father, Lester Grinspoon. An outspoken advocate for drug policy reform and embracing different, non-AA paths to recovery, he talks about how he got there: his opiate addiction, fall from medicine, subsequent return, and learning just how deep the stigma against drugs goes, and how much the medical establishment is another arm of the Drug War. Seeing Through the Smoke aims to tell the truth about cannabis, especially on benefits and real and debunked harms. How can we get more physicians and lawmakers on our side if all they know is propaganda?
He discusses:
-The challenge in speaking honestly with physicians about drug use
-Why physicians are in support of researching psychedelics but not cannabis
-Stigmatized language and Drug War vibes in medical software
-The truth about cannabis, schizophrenia, and the risk of drug-induced psychosis
-Portugal and the ‘Rat Park’ model
-The importance of listening to what patients are saying – especially when we don’t have enough good data
and more!
Notable Quotes
“My dad got John Mack and Carl Sagan together so that Carl can convince John that UFOs aren’t actually real. And apparently, it got very heated, and John Mack yelled at Carl Sagan: ‘You’re being too cartesian!’ So I had a very weird childhood. I mean, all these people were smoking pot frequently in my house when I was growing up, and I grew to associate cannabis with intellectual discussion and very motivated people. I had a very different experience with it than I think it’s fair to say most people did.”
“Back then, the psychiatrists were all completely against psychedelics and people were not at all in favor of medical cannabis. I did my senior presentation as a resident on medical cannabis in the year 2000 (23 years ago), and everybody thought I was so eccentric. And they thought that this was the latest fad, like beta carotene or Omega-3 whatever. And now it’s fun because the same doctors who thought I was eccentric are referring patients to me.”
“94% of Americans support legal access to medical cannabis at this point. …Who’s against medical marijuana? I mean, come on, someone’s dying of cancer; give them some medical marijuana. And again, the AMA still puts it in derogatory quotation marks. So does the American Psychiatric Association. They put ‘medical marijuana’ in these derogatory quotation marks, like, ‘This is just something that only an ignorant patient would believe.’ …I wish they’d just have a little bit more humility and a little bit of interest in rethinking their positions.”
Links
Time.com: Decriminalizing Opioids Will Save Countless Lives
Marihuana Reconsidered, by Lester Grinspoon, M.D.
Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, by Lester Grinspoon and James B. Bakalar
Marihuana: The Forbidden Medicine, by Lester Grinspoon, M.D. and James B. Bakalar
