Sanjay Gupta on marijuana

NEW YORK >> CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta says he spoke too soon in opposing the medical use of marijuana in the past and that he now believes the drug can have very real benefits for people with specific health problems.

Gupta, the network's chief medical correspondent and a brain surgeon, detailed his change of heart in an interview Friday and in an article for CNN's website titled, "Why I changed my mind on weed." He will narrate a documentary on the topic that will air on the network Sunday.

He wrote in Time magazine in 2009 about his opposition to laws that would make the drug available for medical purposes. "Smoking the stuff is not going to do your health any good," he wrote then. But Gupta said Friday he too easily associated marijuana with "malingerers that just wanted to get high."

Now he wants to say he's sorry.

Gupta said he didn't look hard enough at research on the topic, and found some new research that had been done since then. He was encouraged to look into the issue further upon meeting a 5-year-old girl in Colorado for whom medical marijuana has sharply cut down on the amount of seizures she had been suffering.

Time spent with her and others made him realize that medical professionals should be responsible for providing the best care possible, and that could include marijuana.

"We have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that," he wrote.