In 2010 Julie Holland, MD published an excellent anthology called “The Pot Book.” Lester Grinspoon, MD, and SCC president Jeffrey Hergenrather, MD, were among the clinicians and researchers who contributed chapters.
On March 1, 2015, Holland published an op-ed in the New York Times revealing and questioning the extent to which Americans are being prescribed mind-altering pharmaceuticals. One in four women and one in seven men are on mood elevators of one kind or another. Abilify, an anti-psychotic, is the number one selling drug in our disabilified country,
Holland concludes eloquently:
When we are overmedicated, our emotions become synthetic. For personal growth, for a satisfying marriage and for a more peaceful world, what we need is more empathy, compassion, receptivity, emotionality and vulnerability, not less.
We need to stop labeling our sadness and anxiety as uncomfortable symptoms, and to appreciate them as a healthy, adaptive part of our biology.
SCC founder Tod Mikuriya, MD, always made reference to “the toxic alternatives,” when he discussed cannabis as a treatment for a given condition. See, for example, “Cannabis as a First-Line Treatment for Childhood Mental Disorders” and “Cannabis Eases Post-Traumatic Stress.” Dennis Peron was widely ridiculed for saying, “In a country where they’re pushing Prozac on shy teenagers, all marijuana use is medical.”
