CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta Calls Trump’s Marijuana Move ‘Huge Development’ for Medical Community

CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta called the rescheduling of marijuana under President Donald Trump’s administration is a “huge development” for the medical community.

Gupta joined Brianna Keilar on Thursday following Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announcing that marijuana approved for medicinal purposes would be rescheduled to help ease restrictions on medical research. While it was previously a Schedule I drug, grouping it with heroin, it is now Schedule III, grouping it with ketamine and Tylenol with codeine.

“This is a big development. There’s no question. People have been talking about this for years,” Gupta said.

Gupta explained the significance is the large recognition of marijuana for medicinal purposes, as he also stressed this new rescheduling does not affect recreational marijuana, which is legal in some states but federally prohibited. Gupta said marijuana can be used to treat pain and seizures, among other things.

He said:

I think what this rescheduling does from a medical standpoint is that for the first time, really in a long time, it recognizes that there is a medicinal use of cannabis. I think we have the schedule. I just want to put the schedule up here to give you some context. But that headline previously, it was sort of scheduled as a I substance, which is with heroin, LSD, and ecstasy. Now it will be sSchedule III, piled with Tylenol with codeine, ketamine, steroids. That’s where it’s going to be scheduled. And that recognizes that it has lower abuse potential and does have medicinal potential, which I think is, you know, what a lot of researchers have been saying for a long time.

Gupta noted later nothing is “universally accepted” as the “right” move today and anti-marijuana activists are not happy with more restrictions being eased on marijuana.

Gupts said:

I think overall, in the scientific community, this is mostly seen as a good thing because one of the conundrums I will tell you of cannabis for a long time is people understandably said, we want more research. But doing research on a Schedule I substance was really hard. It’s really hard to get the research that was necessary to prove the medicinal value. As a Schedule III substance, I think a lot of those barriers will be taken down. So in the medical scientific community, mostly positive, but there’s always, you know, I think, naysayers on both sides.

Watch above via CNN.

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