Cannabis strand named in honor of Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: A strand of marijuana has been named after world-renowned Indian-American surgeon Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
The announcement comes just weeks after Gupta famously reversed his long-standing position on medical marijuana. After claiming for years that the drug held no medical value and should not be legalized, the CNN Chief Medical Correspondent posted on the company’s website a blog post in which he took back his words against the use of medical marijuana and began endorsing its usage.
The strand of cannabis – the scientific name for marijuana – will be named “Gupta Kush,” and has been given by Jeff Kless, the owner of Helping Hands Herbals Dispensary, a medical marijuana retailer in Boulder, Colorado.
Kless says he decided to name the strand after Gupta because of his importance as one of the foremost medical minds in the world; Gupta’s support of the legalization of medical marijuana has gained them a strong ally, and Kless wants to honor Gupta in the best way he sees possible.
Marijuana is currently legal in 20 US states, as well as the nation’s capital, but the Obama administration has been reticent to pass a federal law legalizing its distribution for medicinal purposes throughout the country, thus leaving it a state issue.
The fight to legalize marijuana, both medicinally and recreationally, has been raging in some form or another since the early 1900s, but has picked up considerable steam in recent decades to the point where many think its legalization is only a matter of when, not if.
Gupta is a native of Michigan; he went to school and earned both his Bachelor’s and MD at the University of Michigan. He was offered the position of Surgeon General for the Obama administration in 2009, but declined. He currently lives in Atlanta with his wife and three daughters, and recently produced a documentary entitled Weed, the research for which he credits with persuading him to take up the cause for legalizing medical marijuana.