Comment & Debate
Sanjay Gupta, MD, Chief Medical Correspondent for CNN. “Why I Would Vote No on Pot.” Time magazine. Nov. 6, 2006: “Marijuana isn’t really very good for you. True, there are health benefits for some patients. [but…] Frequent marijuana use can seriously affect your short-term memory. It can impair your cognitive ability (why do you think people call it dope?) and lead to long-lasting depression or anxiety. While many people smoke marijuana to relax, it can have the opposite effect on frequent users. And smoking anything, whether it’s tobacco or marijuana, can seriously damage your lung tissue…Despite all the talk about the medical benefits of marijuana, smoking the stuff is not going to do your health any good.”
Robert DeLorenzo, MD, PhD, MPH, Professor of Neurology in the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. “Marijuana and Its Receptor Protein in Brain Control Epilepsy.” Sep. 30, 2003: “Individuals both here and abroad report that marijuana has been therapeutic for them in the treatment of a variety of ailments, including epilepsy. But the psychoactive side effects of marijuana make its use impractical in the treatment of epilepsy. If we can understand how marijuana works to end seizures, we may be able to develop novel drugs that might do a better job of treating epileptic seizures.”[1]