Dr. Peter Grinspoon has a decades-long relationship and understanding of cannabis very few physicians can match. His father was a legendary cannabis Harvard scholar and as a child, he witnessed his older brother being treated with cannabis to alleviate the impact of cancer and the treatments – both were transformative for his views on cannabis. Dr. Grinspoon has been treating patients with medical cannabis in his practice since it was legalized in Massachusetts in 2015.
During his interview with CannabizMD Founder/CEO Jacquie Cohen Roth, MS, Dr. Grinspoon is refreshingly open and with great humility, shares his first-person experience with cannabis as a medicine and recreationally. In his most recent book, Seeing Through the Smoke, he untangles the complex history and truth physicians have had with viewing cannabis as a viable treatment option for their patients.
“You can’t make an informed decision about any drug, including and particularly something as complex as cannabis unless you truly have a balanced, neutral, and reasoned discussion about both the harms and the benefits. So, I’ve said things in the book that get people on both sides a little bit upset. But I figure if you’re getting sort of shot at equally by both sides, you’re doing a pretty good job.”
The interview includes discussions on the validity of cannabis causing schizophrenia, cannabis use disorder (CUD), protections for medical cannabis patients in an adult-use market, and the critical need for cannabis education for both cannabis consumers and patients.
Dr. Grinspoon joins the Boston CannabizMD Cannabis Science + Policy Forum on June 16, 2023, as both a panel member for “Clinical + Research Applications of Medical Cannabis” and as moderator of “Innovation + Emerging Trends”. The Forum is a hybrid event hosted in-person and virtually on Zoom. Additional information and registration can be found here.
