Sanjay Gupta confusing medicine and politics

Sunday 11 January 2009 - Filed under Politics

There are rumors that Sanjay Gupta may be nominated as Surgeon General. I don’t have a strong opinion on it (yet) but I do have to take exception to this article he wrote: Why I Would Vote No On Pot.

It’s not a bad article — he lists the health benefits of marijuana as well as the ricks associated with it. This is good stuff for people to know. My objection is that he encourages people to vote against more liberal marijuana laws based on the fact that marijuana has risks associated with it.

That’s not the criterion we use for making policy! There are all sorts of legal things with risks associated with them. Millions of ‘em. Gupta, if you want to give medical advice, fine. But it is insane to base your opinion on matters of policy, liberty and law solely on a medical opinion.

Booze is legal and prohibiting it was a disaster. It is completely wrong to prohibit marijuana for the exact same reasons and the minor medical risks of marijuana certainly do not trump these other more important arguments.

2009-01-11  »  lolife