The Cannabis Question on PBS
Recently I watched “The Cannabis Question” on the PBS show Nova which was written, directed and produced by the award winning Sarah Holt of PBS.
Watch The Cannabis Question on the PBS science show Nova,
I am no stranger to marijuana documentaries. In my 40+ years in the cannabis issue I have watched many documentaries and even appeared in a few. But this documentary seemed different to me. It was balanced and educational, offering many good insights into ongoing research and calmly presenting the potential problems and concerns. I felt it reflected the calming impact of science on this long-standing emotional issue. As Stacy Gruber says in the opening minutes, “Truth through science.” Hallelujah!
Ms. Holt deserves a lot of credit for touching on the important points—education, research, and the puzzling aspect of continued cannabis arrests in a country that has overwhelming indicated they want reform when it comes to cannabis regulation. According to Kassandra Frederique, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, there is an arrest for cannabis possession every 58 seconds in America. How can that be?
It is clear that solving the cannabis problem in the U.S. will involve a fundamental shift at the federal level and, frankly, I am not seeing anyone who has the wherewithal to make that happen. Why? Because it is hard and our culture seems unable to confront these problems that were created, frankly, by federal policy missteps. Chinazo Cunningham of Albert Einstein College of Medicine had a good outlook on it, “[R]eally the questions are: for what conditions is it beneficial, for what conditions is it harmful, and for whom is it beneficial and for whom is it harmful? So, it’s shades of gray. It’s not completely black and white, and it’s complicated.”
While we wait we must rely on producers like Sarah Holt to put together what we know about cannabis in a balanced and educational way. Sanjay Gupta has done a good job of
this with his “Weed” documentaries on CNN. But sometimes I have the feeling that Gupta’s star power gets in the way of the story. In “The Cannabis Question” the experts and patients are the focus and they stay that way throughout.
One particularly compelling segment involved Dr. Doris Trauner of the University of California in San Diego who is studying the effects of the FDA-approved, cannabis-based medicine epidiolex on severe behavior problems in children with autism. The study is double-blind, thus fulfilling the “gold standard” of research so desired by federal officials. One month the children get epidiolex, the next they get a placebo. For the parents of one young man with autism it was fairly clear which month their son was on the epidiolex and they are anxious for the study to end so they can start treating their son regularly with cannabidiol. By the way, the San Diego based study is still recruiting according to clinicaltrials.gov. Here is the link: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04517799
For the cannabis purist, this documentary probably does not go far enough but I personally felt it was a very solid explanation of where we are at this point in time. There was very little mention of past cannabis horrors such as young men smoking marijuana may develop breasts or becoming impotent. But we are a long way from being out of woods when it comes to cannabis and there are emerging issues within the quasi-legal cannabis industry that will not be easily resolved such as the difference between medical cannabis and social or adult-use users. As Dr. Stacy Gruber of Harvard explained, “Our recreational users have a different goal than our medical patients. Our medical patients say ‘I’m not looking necessarily to change how I feel. I just want to address this set of symptoms.’ … If people turn to it we should know the answers.”
I couldn’t agree more and if the federal government will release cannabis from Schedule I and allow research to proceed posthaste then we will have some of those answers soon. As it is, don’t hold your breath.
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