Sanjay Gupta: What the Next Surgeon General Doesn't Know About Pot

[Wiley50]

http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/118126/sanjay_gupta%3A_what_the_next_surgeon_general_doesn%27t_know_about_pot_/

The next surgeon general needs to stop putting politics before science. Gupta may not be ready for that.

If Dr. Sanjay Gupta is picked for the post of surgeon general, he would become the nation's leading medical advocate. His experience in the media would be beneficial in bringing the Surgeon General's office back to the prominence it held when C. Everett Koop was successfully battling tobacco smoking.

But is Gupta ready to deliver the Obama administration's promised end to the politicization of science and medicine? More specifically, will Gupta toe the federal line that cannabis is lacking in any medical value, or will he recognize what 13 states and the past 12 years of research prove -- that cannabis is a beneficial medicine for some people and an intoxicant far less harmful than alcohol for others?

In 2002, Gupta was more than willing to echo the outrageous claims that smoking pot would lead to psychosis, depression and schizophrenia:

But the three studies you are talking about talk specifically about schizophrenia and depression, and the fact that marijuana use earlier in life actually may lead to an increased -- 30 percent increase -- in schizophrenia later in life.

Depression, also a very big diagnosis -- roughly 18.8 million in this country have it. Again, they looked this time at 1,600 high school students and followed them over about seven years. This is in Australia, not in the United States. But they actually found that all of these boys and girls, particularly girls, were more vulnerable to the symptoms of depression later on in life, again if they were frequent or even daily marijuana users.

I hope that the next surgeon general has been following the research on cannabis and mental health since 2002. This year, Dr. Mikkel Arendt of Aarhus University in Risskov, Denmark, said that people treated for a so-called cannabis-induced psychosis "…would have developed schizophrenia whether or not they used cannabis."

I hope that Gupta has kept up with the journal Schizophrenia Research and the research published there last year by the London's Institute of Psychiatry, which found no statistically significant "differences in symptomatology between schizophrenic patients who were or were not cannabis users," found no "evidence that cannabis users with schizophrenia were more likely to have a family member with the disorder" and that these findings "argue against a distinct schizophrenic-like psychosis caused by cannabis," authors concluded.

Regarding depression, in 2006, researchers at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore found "that the associations observed between marijuana use and subsequent depression status may be attributable not to continued marijuana use, per se, but to third (common) factors associated with both the decision to use marijuana and to depression." In fact, the year prior, researchers at USC had found among cannabis smokers, "those who used once per week or less had less depressed mood, more positive affect and fewer somatic (physical) complaints than non-users," and that "aily users reported less depressed mood and more positive affect than non-users."

Or we could just ask the incoming surgeon general to apply some common sense. If smoking cannabis is a strong predictor of future depression or schizophrenia, then shouldn't there be a spike in the reporting of those conditions around 1978, when 37 percent of high school seniors reported past-month cannabis use, and a decline in depression and schizophrenia around 1992, when the modern low of 12 percent was reported? Instead, what we find is that about 1 percent of the population develops schizophrenia, and that figure stays relatively steady even as cannabis use rises and falls.

In 2006, Gupta was penning the article "Why I Would Vote No on Pot" for Time magazine as Colorado and Nevada had non-medical-cannabis-regulation ballot measures pending. It doesn't seem like he's been following the past two decades of research:

I'm constantly amazed that after all these years -- and all the wars on drugs and all the public-service announcements -- nearly 15 million Americans still use marijuana at least once a month.

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[sandnsea]

1. People with schizophrenia and depression

seek out marijuana, not the other way around. I am not even a proponent of using marijuana except for cancer and a few similar situations, but even I know the worst thing it causes is apathy, which is not clinical depression. Gads.

[tech3149]

2. That shows the weakness of Gupta

He can't diagnose the difference between cause and effect. If you can't see the cause of the problem, you'll never find a solution. Like too many "trained" professionals, he sees the problem through the symptom, but never can get his brain around the cause.

[sandnsea]

3. I've seen so many people

with bipolar mostly, who smoke pot and it has been a lifesaver. For some, it really does seem to work better than the medication. I've also seen people turn into the cartoon commercial too, so I know that's true. But it doesn't make any sense to deny the truth of one because of a bad effect on somebody else. I think some of this is because there's no real world experience. Clinical experience just does not take the place of knowing people intimately over the course of years.

In fairness to Gupta though, I think the problem would exist in a lot of health professionals. I wish he would have chosen Kitzhaber, who is even more liberal on health issues than Dean.

[madrchsod]

4. menopause,hepatitis c, and other problems that i know of.

the compounds in cannabis are going to be some of the next generation of medicines

[Occam Bandage]

5. And if it were actually about medical viability,

you'd be pushing for drug companies to extract the effective compounds from cannabis, purify them, and then release them to the public in a targeted pill form.

[cbc5g]

11. Why should they have control over a plant and not us?

Pharmaceutical drugs kill people, marijuana doesn't. But yeah, lets give the pharma companies more power to take our money and feed us their shit instead of being able to use something safe that naturally grows on the planet and has been used for thousands of years. :eyes:

By the way, they have tried to make cannabis pills and they have failed because they don't work and aren't effective.

[Pastiche423]

13. Please add central pain for those w/SCI

as well as paralytic spasticity to your list.

[Occam Bandage]

6. The fact that the primary opposition to Gupta seems to be pot-related

does not do anything to change my mind. If the best arguments against him are, "he isn't for marijuana legalization" and "his television show runs advertisements," then I think Obama knocked this one out of the park.

[emilyg]

8. Yes.

[High Plains]

9. Well, there was also his unfounded attack on "Sicko"

and some other claims that he's a shill for Big Pharma, which I don't know that much about. But the pot people aren't the only opponents.

[cbc5g]

10. If he can't see the science behind pot he won't see the science behind anything else

Without putting his bias behind it. And it is bias, he has no credible research defending his statements. I don't think you see that prohibition of marijuana actually does effect you as well even if you don't use it. When a child is killed by a drug gang member in a random shooting, that is the prohibition of drugs that made for that event to happen. A person that is inducted into a life of crime at an early age because of going to jail over drugs, and then gets out and robs your house, thats the prohibition of drugs that made for that event to happen.

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. The 6 Most Idiotic Positions of Dr. Sanjay Gupta

6. Gupta Took Wacky Raelian(cult) Claim of Cloning at Face Value

5. Gupta Is Weak on Phthalates Risk, Bizarre on "Eating iPhones"

4. Gupta Voiced Outdated, Paranoid Fears on Medical Marijuana Users

3. Gupta Accused of Overhyping Gardasil Before Safety and Effectiveness Data Is In

2. Gupta Downplayed the Risks of Vioxx-(this drug effected me)

1. Gupta's Extremely Flawed Attack on Michael Moore


Videos and detailed commentary on these points at this link: http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/blogs/recycling-design-technology/sanjay-gupta-surgeon-general-460109

[TWiley]

12. Pot is for people who cannot face reality.

Sometimes this is due to either grave or persistently uncomfortable medical conditions, and other times it is due to the self-treatment of various mental illnesses like depression. Pot smokers have a difficult time relating to other people and ordinary social situations without relying on the influence of pot.

The real relationship between depression, schizophrenia, and marijuana use is that it is frequently being used to treat these pre-existing conditions. Paranoid fears, suicidal thoughts, and the sensation of anxiety or desperation is common among regular users faced with any possibility of an interruption to their multi-daily intake.

I feel that anyone who needs medication to cope with life (pot, alcohol, or other drugs) either has a diminished mental capacity, or is experiencing a legitimate medical concern.

Most people who use pot daily for 30 - 50 years are puerile, never emotionally growing up. Many still wear the same style of clothes they did in high school, or cannot outgrow simple childhood mannerisms. They seem stuck in a time lapse; 55 years old while believing they are 17.

One thing I do find interesting in the long-term drug culture is the level of pride associated with the esoteric knowledge associated to the procurement, cultivation, use, or identification of the drug. You can train a monkey to smoke pot, but the level of personal identification and pride associated with this simple act approaches grandiose delusions. I drink cola so I am FAR more sophisticated than you. What if someone invested their entire self-image in a beet? Pot addiction is equally insane.

The best thing for society is to have more sober people driving, relating, and working rather than large numbers of people under the influence of anything.

I support the medical use of pot, but am dubious about its recreational use. I see no good coming from it.