Thanks, Doc. Now Cram It

Now I have a reason to think the Gupta appointment to Surgeon General is stupid. He's against weed because "isn't really very good for you." As Paul at LGM points out, there are lots of things that are bad for us, this doesn't necessarily make them illegal. I hate to be that guy, but alcohol and cigarettes come to mind pretty quickly. Another reason to oppose him is that fact that the good doctor apparently doesn't give his writing much thought, as his first sentence presents a couple of head scratchers:

Maybe it's because I was born a couple of months after Woodstock and wasn't around when marijuana was as common as iPods are today, but I'm constantly amazed that after all these years--and all the wars on drugs and all the public-service announcements--nearly 15 million Americans still use marijuana at least once a month.

Okay, he's assuming that there was a hell of a lot more pot smoking in the '60s than there is today. I'd like to see some evidence of this. All those boomers that still toke up, plus the Gen Xers, plus the kids are significantly fewer than the people who blazed in the'60s? I'd like to see some proof. I mean I think I know he's joking about the iPod thing, but still.

Then there's the fact that he's amazed that despite(!) the war on drugs and the PSAs(!) that people still smoke pot. Has he ever seen an anti-pot PSA? They are pretty awesomely (and notoriously) not going to keep many people from smoking pot. Why? Well, mostly because 15 million Americans apparently do it at least once a month and we're not shooting ourselves in the head, doing H within a couple of weeks, sitting on our mom's couch for a living, or frying eggs for no apparent reason.

In fact, Sanjay Gupta, Surgeon General-to-be, in an article for national publication that one assumes he put some thought into, can only come up with these reasons to not to smoke pot:

Frequent marijuana use can seriously affect your short-term memory. It can impair your cognitive ability (why do you think people call it dope?) and lead to long-lasting depression or anxiety. While many people smoke marijuana to relax, it can have the opposite effect on frequent users. And smoking anything, whether it's tobacco or marijuana, can seriously damage your lung tissue.

So, again, it's almost as bad as alcohol or cigarettes.

Rant over. I'm actually not as worked up about this as I am his (apparent) opposition to nationalized, single-payer health care, but jeebus, on the eve of his appointment this is what we get, a poorly thought-out anti-pot message.