PT484 – Dr. Peter Grinspoon – Seeing Through the Smoke: The Importance of Telling the Truth About Cannabis
Psychedelics Today
Psychedelics Today, LLC
4.6 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 6 February 2024
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, everybody, welcome back to psychedelics today. |
| 0:13.3 | Joe Moore here coming at you from Breckenridge, Colorado. |
| 0:15.8 | Today on the show, we have Dr. Peter Grinspoon, a doctor at Harvard, M.G.H in Boston, and outspoken advocate about |
| 0:25.4 | drug policy reform, improved drug situations in medicine more generally, and much more. |
| 0:30.2 | He's the author of multiple books and many articles. |
| 0:32.9 | We get into that in the show. |
| 0:35.8 | And I think you're going to like this one. |
| 0:37.0 | Some really great insight from a |
| 0:38.7 | physician who's on the front lines here with people. So all right, enjoy this episode. Please do |
| 0:45.3 | follow Peter on his socials and see what he's writing. And yeah, let us know what you think. |
| 0:51.2 | Shoot us some feedback info at psychedelicsday.com or send us a review |
| 0:55.2 | some other way on one of the podcasting platforms or something. But all right, enjoy this episode |
| 0:59.8 | of Peter Grinspoon. We'll see you on the other side. |
| 1:05.6 | Hi, everybody. Welcome back to psychedelics today. I'm joined today by famed, I guess, cannabis activist, now a bit of a psychedelic activist, Peter Greenspoon MD out of Harvard MGH. How are you doing today? |
| 1:20.7 | Doing really good. Thank you. Thanks for having me on the show. Yeah, absolutely. Really excited. I've been following you on socials for years now and always |
| 1:30.4 | impressed by your awesome commentary and great insight into this kind of drug science, drug policy |
| 1:36.5 | situation we find ourselves in. Well, thank you. I mean, it's fair to say I've been involved in |
| 1:41.5 | it since like birth. So I do have a long vantage point. |
| 1:45.2 | Well, let's describe that, right? |
| 1:46.7 | So your father was a very influential figure, at least around cannabis. |
| 1:50.8 | Can you tell me what his work was looking like? |
| 1:54.1 | Sure. |
... |
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