Murthy changes his stance from last year’s hearing.
By The American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: Doing an about-face from his stance a year ago, when he had told a Senate confirmation hearing that he would not recommend marijuana, as it’s ‘not a good habit’, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy now is open to using medical marijuana, as it might offer health benefits.
“We have some preliminary data showing that for certain medical conditions and symptoms that marijuana can be helpful,” Murthy told “CBS This Morning” on Wednesday. “So I think we have to use that data to drive policymaking, and I’m very interested to see where that data takes us,” he added.
Murthy, however, cautioned that more research needs to be done to gauge the full benefits of marijuana which is legal in some states but banned at the federal level, telling CBS: “My position is we have to see what the science tells us about the efficacy of marijuana, and I think we’re going to get a lot more data on that.”
Murthy’s new stance on marijuana is keeping in line with President Barack Obama’s remark last year that marijuana is not “more dangerous than alcohol”, reported The Hill.
“As has been well-documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life,” Obama told The New Yorker magazine. “I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”
Fortune reported that in December, Congress passed a spending measure that included a provision to effectively end the federal ban on medical marijuana in states where it is legal.
At the moment, 23 states allow the use of medical marijuana, despite the fact that federal laws still classify marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug — the most dangerous level, which also includes heroin and ecstasy. Four states have passed laws legalizing recreational pot along with Washington, D.C.
Medical marijuana is effective as a painkiller, especially in some cases of cancer in late stages. According to WebMD, pain is the main reason people ask for a prescription, says Barth Wilsey, MD, a pain medicine specialist at the University of California Davis Medical Center. It could be from headaches, cancer, or a long-term condition, like glaucoma or nerve pain.