Sanjay Gupta: I Was Wrong About Weed

For years, Sanjay Gupta has been among the voices calling medical marijuana illegitimate, even writing a 2009 Time article entitled "Why I Would Vote No on Pot." "Well, I am here to apologize," the celebrity doctor writes today at CNN. Gupta has spent a lot of time researching pot for his new documentary Weed, and has arrived at a conclusion: "We have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that."

Gupta—who admits that he's tried marijuana—had assumed the DEA had solid scientific reasons for making marijuana a schedule 1 drug. But the 1970 letter recommending the designation cited "a considerable void in our knowledge," and suggested further research. And even then there was plenty of evidence suggesting marijuana's benefits. Gupta has since talked to patients who really need it—like one child who was having 300 seizures a week until marijuana dropped it to two or three a month. "It is irresponsible not to provide the best care we can," Gupta argues, "care that could involve marijuana." Click for his full column. (More Sanjay Gupta stories.)