This post reminded me that when the original story appeared, Stephen Colbert referred to the gent as "Dr. Ganjay Supta.”
Made me laugh then, and again just now.
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Well, Sanjay Gupta is one of the most well-known “medical personalities” in the country, and I think it’s fair to also call him a legitimate journalist. He’s never been a “Doctor Phil” kind of medi-tainment TV doctor guy. He’s an actual brain surgeon, in fact I seem to remember him doing some emergency brain surgery on an Iraqi boy who was hurt during our invasion when he was reporting on it, embedded with US troops. He was considered for Surgeon General by Obama I believe, and decided to decline because of the pressures it would have put on him and his family. What I’m saying is, the guy ain’t half bad in the scheme of things, has a good platform to speak from in terms of reaching a lot of Americans and being seen as a “legitimate voice.” If he’s going to go on the record saying he used to be wrong about medical marijuana, he now has a new opinion, he continues to research the issue, and is trying to encourage wider dialogue about the issue, well shit – the guy is definitely a’ight.
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What do Mexicans call it?
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I think they call it “Mota”?
I vote for “cannabis”.
And as a parent, I am for the complete decriminalization and legalization of cannabis. Nixon ignored his own drug task force and kept it as a Schedule I narcotic… what. the. donut?
If it was good enough for Carl Sagan… god we miss ye Carl! looking forward to the Cosmos reboot (tho I expect a certain level of schmaltz, of course)
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What’s wrong with “ganja”?
Hey, he must be talking about the single parents, because I’m a married parent, don’t smoke, don’t really want my kids to smoke, but I want it legalized. I know other family members who feel the same, and people who are also parents.
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I remember reading somewhere (although I haven’t been able to find a source) that “marijuana” was both a racist and homophobic term, being a loose translation of “Mary Jane”, which was a US derogatory term for gay early 20th century. However, [Citation needed]
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At this point there’s been a break between the cultural associations that once made the name an ethnic slur and the current use of the term. Perhaps it’s been that there simply been enough time that has passed since it was used in that fashion, or perhaps it’s that use is now widespread across many cultural groups etc…
Also, Buddhist. Have fun. It’s cool with us. (also can you please make it a name for crack? that would be awesome)
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One only has to read that sentence once to know it’s racist.
Uh, there is no other beer besides Guinness, so I’m ok with all Mary Jane being called Maui Wowie. I’ll have a double cheeberger with a guinness and a fat ass joint of Maui-Wowie, with a slice of cherry pie and whipped cream, please and thank you wishing star!
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I’m perfectly fine with whatever people want to call it, but I’d suspect the renaming folks would say the word “ganja” has connotations of lazy, stoner reggae types, as well as black Jamaicans, and anything other than lilly white probably doesn’t work for the prohibition crowd.
- A lot of people call cannabis “buddha;” just so you know.
- Great, you’d be cool with it if it happened to you! That doesn’t mean anybody would be, and that doesn’t make it not racist.
- You don’t see how it’s racist (anymore, at least). Cool. That seems to be going well for you. That doesn’t make it not racist.
It’s really not that hard to stop using the word “marijuana” and start using the word “cannabis.” It’s actually ridiculously simple. I think some folks in this thread need to ask themselves why it’s so important to them that they not even consider suggestions that they should slightly alter their speech to avoid sounding racist, even around highly racially charged subjects such as the War on Drugs.
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the guy ain’t half bad in the scheme of things
In the scheme of marijuana, he’s an extreme late-comer and lost credibility on the topic a long time ago in the process. I know with celeb doctors or any celebrities we’re all supposed to embrace “the politics of redemption”, but I’m going to view his judgment with suspicion (brain surgeon Iraqi boy saver or not).
That said, I see your point that it’s good that a mainstream celeb doctor has finally come around. Hopefully his belated positive influence can save some of the lives that have been trashed by the inane war on pot he and others helped to enable all these decades.
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I realize it’s easy to maintain puritanical holier-than-thou attitudes as an anonymous poster on a forum on the internet, like, sure. And if you want to dis Gupta for being “late to the game,” well, that’s like your opinion, man.
On the other hand, he certainly didn’t cause the criminalization of pot, probably didn’t do much to reinforce its criminality over the years, in that it was criminalized all along, and now that he’s come around, he isn’t just going, like, “yeah folks, so look what I figured out!” but he’s more like “I was wrong, totally wrong, my point of view has caused harm, not only do I relent, but I’m kind of making it my personal mission to get the word out now that I’ve seen the light.” I can get behind that, especially as now he’s seen said light, he’ll probably be one of the most impactful people in DECADES to contribute to the issue of the legitimacy of medical marijuana, and maybe more sane marijuana laws in general.
I mean shit man, if (some) Rwandans can forgive people who were committing acts of mass tribal genocide and violence, can’t we, like, forgive Sanjay and embrace him, fuck, maybe like, elect him spokesperson for the issue of medical marijuana? He’ll do a better job of it than probably anybody else.
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Even if (actually, I do) agree with you, when you open with racism, I tune the rest out, just like I tune it out when stupid people I know talk racist bullshit. When my great-grandpa talked shit about the n**ers being lazy and such, I tuned it out because even at a young age I knew it was stupid. Because racism is stupid.
rac·ism n. the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, esp. so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
That’s what racism is. Don’t tack oppression onto it, because that weakens the word, “oppression” is a fine word all on its own, and right now the rewriting of “racism” is helping to normalize racism against a group that, while it is still the privileged majority, won’t be for much longer; and further, by the time people my kids’ age are adults, it will be A-OK to be racist against a group that will almost certainly be a minority by then, because as we’ve seen demonstrated within our own lives, racism seems to have a momentum all its own despite any efforts to the contrary. Yes, they will benefit from the tail end of that privileged life; no, they had no say in it so it’s still not okay to be racist against them.
Want to end oppression? Can’t do it and a racist piece of crap at the same time. Because if part of “ending oppression” means othering an entire race…no.
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I didn’t say it. The fellow I was responding to said it. Then he said that all white people are “taught their whole lives to be complicit in systems of white supremacy.” But he wasn’t being racist! I guess… or something…
Besides all that, I agree with your post.
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Damn. I grabbed a quote and it had the wrong name in the dooblydoo. Sorry about that. :-/ Amended to reflect that it’s tre that said that.
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I’ve met probably a couple thousand docs personally over the years. I’d say a solid 1/4 of them smoke pot. Not necessarily the younger ones, either. All ages. Docs have neither promoted nor resisted the prohibition of marijuana. They have quietly waited, just like most of the rest of us. I can’t demonize Gupta or pretty much any docs on this issue.
No worries! 
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OK guys… now internet hug!
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