The Grinspoons are like the First Jewish Family of Cannabis Activists, so it felt like kizmet when I received the opportunity to review Dr. Peter Grinspoon’s new book, Seeing Through the Smoke: A Cannabis Specialist Untangles the Truth about Marijuana. Grinspoon is an internationally renowned doctor and cannabis specialist whose father, Dr. Lester Grinspoon (zt”l), wrote the groundbreaking book Marihuana Reconsidered (1971) that led to a paradigm shift in public opinion and laid the foundation for the cannabis legalization movement. Lester Grinspoon is remembered as a brilliant scholar and fearless activist who opposed the medical establishment and provoked Nixon to complain about Jews (and once kept John and Yoko out of prison). A dialogue with Peter Grinspoon about why doctors are (still) wrong about cannabis is the perfect way to introduce the Jewish history of cannabis research and advocacy.
Over time, doctors, being the politically passive species of sheep that we are, gave up our clinical knowlege about cannabis and started parroting the government’s position, even if it contradicted our clinical experience. As far as cannabis goes, “do no harm” became “be good sheep.”
Seeing Through the Smoke
CJM Editor-in-Chief (LS) interviews Dr. Peter Grinspoon (PG)
LS: It was a pleasure to read your book. I loved how you framed the project in terms of the dire need to move past the two contradictory narratives about cannabis that inform the “anti” and “pro” positions (the “Reefer Pessimists” vs. the “Cannatopians”), because they are not simply misleading but create a very real dissonance that is extremely confusing, and erodes our ability to think critically, feel empathy, and promote sensible policies that alleviate suffering. Instead, our investment in defending one of these two ideological positions radicalizes us and increases the polarization and social dysfunction that makes it impossible to even imagine what a common sense, rational policy about cannabis might look like; especially when the public debate is trapped within these two opposing narratives about the benefits and harms of THC.
Then you provide the ladder to help us “see through the smoke” with a clear, thorough analysis of the evidence that grounds your outline for a sensible public policy about cannabis, in accessible, often humorous prose. In addition, you account for your ability to “think outside” the polarizing terms of the dominant discourse by giving an intimate account of your childhood, and growing up as the son of Dr. Lester Grinspoon, generally regarded as the intellectual leader of the cannabis legalization movement (and besties with Carl Sagan—it was nice to learn he was a cannabis Jew too!).
In this way, I really appreciated how you illustrated the importance of tracing the profound ties between the personal, political and professional as an essential part of the process of examining our assumptions and gaining a better understanding of our commitments—because it’s so Jewish! At times your argument makes use of phenomenology, Marxist analysis, psychoanalytic theory and even a bit of deconstruction —the critical methodologies created by Jewish philosophers in the 20th century. But it’s also so accessible and engaging—that’s the real mitzvah, if you know what I mean. But before I get into the Jewish, I do have a couple of actual questions about your book (as soon as I can stop kvelling).
Our “endocannabinoid system”—the vast network of neurotransmitters and receptors that controls a whole host of bodily functions and which also provides the mechanism by which cannabis acts—isn’t taught at a majority of medical schools. This is astounding because this system is vitally important to virtually every internal system we have and mediates such essential functions as sleep, emotional processing, energy, expenditure, appetite, and memory. Because of the War on Cannabis, research and teaching on it has been delayed and is lacking.
Seeing Through the Smoke
LS: At times it was hard for me to understand the great flaw of the “Cannatopians,” when they just seem to be expressing a lot of enthusiasm about the potential of cannabis to heal a variety of maladies and enhance the quality of life—which seems to reflect your general conclusions that cannabis can enhance critical and creative thinking, aesthetic appreciation, and reduce physical and psychological sources of pain. Even though they may be insufficiently critical, they don’t seem so far off in viewing cannabis as a potential treatment for everything. Did you have a certain position in mind when critiquing this group, one that can help me understand if I’m a little too Cannatopian in my gratitude for cannabis?
PG: Obviously, my leanings generally tend toward the Cannatopian as I’m against criminalization and deeply believe in the benefits (within reason, and with some consideration of the harms). But I do think that both sides participate in the polarization. The Cannatopians need to embrace and accept harms (e.g., cannabis can be addictive, even if it has been exaggerated) just as the Reefer Pessimists need to acknowledge benefits. The Cannatopians can overreact to the insane 50 years of Prohibition we’ve all been subjected to by rejecting simple compromises that can help all of us – such as not packaging things in a way that can harm children (think of a big bag of barely marked gummies or a minimally marked chocolate bar with tons of THC in it). They also aren’t particularly open to potential harms – dismissing new studies of harm as U.S. Government propaganda (which it largely was in the past, but now things are becoming more balanced), without critically evaluating these studies on their own merits. We ALL should want to know the true harms and benefits, so as to use safely and wisely. It isn’t a magical drug with zero harms (e.g., there is a legitimate concern with psychosis, pregnancy/breastfeeding, teens…).
LS: Throughout your book you present the evidence to reject many long-standing views and entrenched assumptions about the effects of cannabis. In addition to the critical analysis, you also explain 2 facts about cannabis that the medical establishment refuses to acknowledge:
I. The intoxicating or mind-altering effects of cannabis are distinct from and cannot be assimilated to the intoxicating effects of other substances.
II. These mind-altering effects can have therapeutic value; they are not merely or always an unfortunate side-effect that we should strive to avoid.
In my view, the medical establishment can’t take these claims seriously because they throw into question the distinction between the medical and recreational use of cannabis (as you say, it’s usually a pretty grey area), as well as the adequacy of the bio-medical model to measure the therapeutic value of cannabis; especially since the effects of THC are so subjective as to preclude the ability to identify a standard dose with predictable results.
It was really helpful when you provided a detailed explanation of the limitations of using randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled trials–the “gold standard” of scientific measurement in Western medicine–to evaluate the medicinial benefits of cannabis in Chapter Seven of Seeing Through the Smoke, “What Counts as Evidence?” For me, it helped explain (in part) the medical hostility toward cannabis, since you point out that it has certain properties–such as the ability to alleviate many symptoms at once–that cannot be detected by randomized controlled trials. It makes sense that doctors would push back (even unconsciously) against evidence that throws into doubt the adequacy of the bio-medical model (and their authority) to assess and regulate cannabis use.
Cannabis is quite enjoyable when used recreationally, causes a mild euphoria, and for many people can enhance the enjoyment of food, sex, music, nature, and art. Medicines aren’t viewed as enjoyable—this makes them suspect. Due to the intrinsically puritanical nature of our society—and as a hangover from the War on Drugs—pleasurable substances aren’t medicines, and medicines aren’t meant to be enjoyed. (Think of the expression “Take your medicine.”)
Seeing Through the Smoke
Even so, I’m still confused about why doctors are so uptight about the therapeutic value of getting stoned, or enhancing one’s capacities and changing one’s perspective through the mild, mind-altering effects of cannabis?
PG: I write a lot about this in the book. In brief, 1) all of the propaganda they’ve been fed 2) drug war pressures 3) lack of objective, up to date, untainted information 4) a paradigm shift [of patient-doctor relation] (patients, in an iterative manner, figure out what works for them – this is a ceding of control) 5) judgment: ‘take your medicine’ – something enjoyable isn’t medicine 6) it doesn’t really fit into what we usually do: you have high blood pressure, take 10 milligrams of this pill and we’ll recheck in a month 7) lack of education – hard to discuss something you know nothing about; easier to just dismiss 8) sheeplike cowardice in the face of federal illegality 9) oversized influence of psychiatrists who are very anti-cannabis (because they see the rare but serious cases of psychosis, while oncologists mostly see benefits) 10) lack of lived experience.
The living room of my childhood was constantly inhabited by the most brilliant academic luminaries of the day, such as Dr. John Mack (my dad’s med school roommate and fellow psychiatrist, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his psychoanalytic biography of Lawrence of Arabia), his other best friend Carl Sagan (who also won a Pulitzer Prize for ‘Dragons of Eden’) and others, such as Alan Ginsberg (who, in a parched voice, said to me, “boy, get me some water” – at the time, ten year old me was like ‘who the fuck is this?’).
The Epic Story of Dr. Lester Grinspoon-Part 2, “Grinspoon on Drugs” (drpetergrinspoon.substack.com)
LS: Have you thought about the connection between Jewish values and the Jewish history of cannabis research? Did your dad ever make this connection, or explain his commitment to cannabis advocacy in terms of his Jewish sensibility of right and wrong? I’m especially curious since he was most likely the cause of Nixon’s famous exclamation: “What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob?,” and because of that great story in your book about your dad learning to box to defend himself from antisemitic bullies.
PG: My dad was very proud of being called a ‘clown’ by Richard Nixon, and was amused about Nixon’s pronouncements about ‘the Jews’ which were obviously leveled at him, and while he was Jewish in a cultural sense, he was a staunch atheist and didn’t give that much thought to this component of his work.
If the aim is to empower students to improve the cannabis industry, then we need to teach Philosophy of Cannabis to question and disrupt the reproduction of systemic inequalities that characterize every industry in our late-stage capitalist economy.
Coates refuses to consider what it means to exist as a remnant of our people, violently removed from the world in the European-wide effort to achieve a “final solution” to the problem of Jews—an existential threat to the white race.
If the aim is to empower students to improve the cannabis industry, then we need to teach Philosophy of Cannabis to question and disrupt the reproduction of systemic inequalities that characterize every industry in our late-stage capitalist economy.
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Coates refuses to consider what it means to exist as a remnant of our people, violently removed from the world in the European-wide effort to achieve a “final solution” to the problem of Jews—an existential threat to the white race.
The Grinspoons are like the First Jewish Family of Cannabis Activists, so it felt like kizmet when I received the opportunity to review Dr. Peter Grinspoon's new book, Seeing Through the Smoke: A Cannabis Specialist Untangles the Truth about Marijuana. Grinspoon is an...Canna-Jewish Book Review: Dr. Peter Grinspoon Keeps it Real and Continues the Family Legacy
