Dr. Daniel Amen, psychiatrist, neuroscientist, bestselling author, and founder of Amen Clinics, joins Kevin Sabet for a new episode of High Stakes with Kevin Sabet, the official podcast of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) and the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions (FDPS).
Dr. Kevin Sabet and Dr. Daniel Amen discuss what decades of brain imaging and clinical practice can teach us about marijuana, mental health, and the brain. Drawing on his experience treating patients and studying tens of thousands of brain scans, Dr. Amen explains why protecting brain health should be at the center of conversations about marijuana use, particularly when it comes to children, teenagers, and young adults.
In the full episode, Kevin and Dr. Amen discuss marijuana’s effects on the developing brain, the relationship between cannabis use and mental health, what brain imaging can reveal about substance use, and why Americans should think more carefully about the choices and habits that affect long-term brain health.
MORE ABOUT DR. DANIEL AMEN: Dr. Daniel Amen is a psychiatrist, neuroscientist, bestselling author, and founder of Amen Clinics. For decades, he has focused his work on brain health and the use of brain imaging in psychiatry. Amen Clinics has built one of the world’s largest databases of functional brain scans related to behavior, and Dr. Amen has authored or co-authored more than 40 books, including Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, The End of Mental Illness, and Raising Mentally Strong Kids. Through his books, television programs, clinical work, and public education, he has become one of the country’s best-known advocates for understanding and protecting the brain.
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High Stakes with Kevin Sabet is a production of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) and Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions (FDPS). The views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of SAM or its affiliates. This podcast is intended for informational and educational purposes.
MORE ABOUT KEVIN: Dubbed by NBC News as the “prodigy of drug politics,” Kevin A. Sabet, Ph.D., is an author, advisor to three U.S. presidential administrations, and one of the nation’s leading voices on drug policy. For more than 20 years, he has studied, researched, written about, and helped shape drug policy in the United States and abroad. He is the President and CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), the nonprofit he co-founded with Congressman Patrick Kennedy and David Frum, and serves as Director of the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida.
Dr. Sabet began his government service in the Clinton Administration, later serving in the Bush Administration and returning as a senior advisor in the Obama Administration, where he helped draft the National Drug Control Strategy. He is the author of Reefer Sanity: Seven Great Myths About Marijuana, co-editor of Marijuana and Contemporary Health (Oxford University Press), and a frequent advisor to governments, NGOs, and international organizations, including the United Nations.
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