As a mysterious respiratory illness sweeps across the planet, medical marijuana patients and recreational users alike have been looking at their bongs and wondering: Is this a bad idea? In a wide-ranging interview about what he has seen at his clinic and in local hospitals, what he thinks of our state’s response to the crisis, and what he believes personally about the benefits of cannabis, Dr. Sunil Aggarwal points out that not all delivery systems are the same. “Tinctures, edibles, non-smoke delivery methods, topicals—these are probably the safest” right now, the doctor says.
You went to medical school at the University of Washington. What has it been like for you living in the epicenter of the first COVID-19 outbreak in the US?
Well, initially we had such little to go on, and so everyone was really just playing things by ear, and nobody really knew. We still don’t have a great sense of the contagiousness. So it was very frightening, nerve-racking, really, to know what advice to give our patients but also protect ourselves.
