#1718 - Dr. Sanjay Gupta

Joe Rogan (0:04)

The Joe Rogan Experience.

Sanjay Gupta (0:13)

I am delighted to be here, Joe.

Joe Rogan (0:15)

I'm delighted to have you. Thanks for reaching out, man.

It's nice to talk to you. It's been nice to get to know you.

Sanjay Gupta (0:20)

You too, you too, thanks.

Joe Rogan (0:21)

Are you enjoying Texas?

Sanjay Gupta (0:23)

Yeah, you know, it's funny, I hadn't been to Austin in some time, and it's changed in a really good way. I was staying at a hotel downtown, walking around, tons of cool restaurants, and I guess Austin City Limits has their little stage that's downtown.

There was a big thing going on there last night, and it was great.

Joe Rogan (0:43)

Yeah, they've recovered. It's, a few months ago, it was pretty rough with the tents and all the homelessness stuff, but they moved those folks into hotels, and they've purchased some hotels.

Sanjay Gupta (0:54)

Have they done that?

Joe Rogan (0:55)

Yeah, they've done.

The mayor's done a good job of trying to clean up the situation. It's all over the country, anywhere you go, any big city, you have this fairly unique situation in terms of modern times of people camping on the street. I mean, I don't remember that as a child. Do you remember, when did you remember first seeing tents?

Sanjay Gupta (1:20)

I mean, I grew up in small towns in the Midwest.

I never lived in big cities. I think I saw it sometimes when I visited those cities, maybe, when I was a kid, but it wasn't the thing.

Joe Rogan (1:32)

It was very rare.

Sanjay Gupta (1:33)

It was very rare, for sure. I think maybe California, to be honest, was the first time I really saw it, you know?

Joe Rogan (1:39)

I was just back in LA a couple of weeks ago, and it's overrun. It's crazy.

I don't know how they ever fix it.

Sanjay Gupta (1:46)

Are you happy with your move?

Joe Rogan (1:48)

I love it here.

Sanjay Gupta (1:48)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (1:49)

Where do you live?

Sanjay Gupta (1:51)

I'm in Atlanta. Yeah, I'm not from there, but we moved there about 20 years ago now. Took a job at the hospital in Michigan.

I lived in DC for a while, various places, but yeah, it's good. It's different than what I ever knew growing up, but I've...

Joe Rogan (2:09)

Atlanta's nice.

Sanjay Gupta (2:10)

Call it home now.

Joe Rogan (2:11)

I like Atlanta a lot.

Sanjay Gupta (2:12)

Got three girls that I born and raised there, so it's good.

Joe Rogan (2:15)

There you go. Yeah.

So what made you want to come on the podcast?

Sanjay Gupta (2:22)

Yeah, well, I like listening to you, Joe. I think you're an authentic guy. No, see, I listened to your podcast for a long time.

And you take on some big issues, and I feel like there's a conversation to be had. It's interesting times, obviously, with this whole pandemic.

And I've struggled at times, really understanding not what people think. I think that that that part you can get what people think. It's the how people think.

So what I would say is I was curious how you think. I mean, you know, how you approach things. And and frankly, you know, I was going to ask you sort of the same thing, like why you would have me on your podcast, right? I mean, if there's value to be added, if the conversation is useful. I think it is. I mean, I'll take it even a step further.

You know, so I'm on CNN, and I feel like the audience that shows up for CNN kind of gets it, gets what I'm saying. They they hear it. They've heard it for a long time preaching to the choir, I guess, not even the converted because they weren't converted. They believe this. But there's obviously a lot of people who think who aren't watching CNN, who like if I wanted to reach them in some way, I mean, you you reach them. And I thought to myself, if there's one person really that I would have a conversation and say, hey, man, just listen to how I think about these things. I want to hear how you think about it. Listen to how I think about these things. Who would that one person be in the United States? And it was Joe Rogan. It was you. How weird. Well, does that surprise you? That doesn't surprise you.

Joe Rogan (4:01)

It does. It still surprises me.

I wanted to have you on first of all, because I really respected that you made this change of opinion publicly when you were first talking about marijuana. You were talking about it as if it had no medical benefit. And it was really just a recreational drug that was possibly or probably harmful. Is that an assessment that you agree with?