First Episode of Third StarTalk Season Features Whoopi Goldberg and Her Experience with Cannabis

The third season of the popular science talk show, StarTalk, hosted by none other than Neil deGrasse Tyson, kicked off with an insightful interview with Whoopi Goldberg. She discussed her cannabis brand, Whoopi and Maya, and how cannabis can help so many others.

“When I was younger, I had horrific menstrual cramps to the point where I had to take really hard drugs to quell the pain,” Whoopi said, and she added that that experience later led to the culmination of Whoopi and Maya. The brand focuses on providing relief for extreme suffering of menstrual cramps. She gave Tyson a sample in their interview, sharing how the infused topical product is safe to use, and highly beneficial. “You can’t smoke it, you can’t get high from this, but you can catch relief,” Whoopi added.

Whoopi also added her support for medical cannabis, especially if it can help people who are prescribed a variety of pharmaceuticals. “I think, if I don’t have to take Oxycodone, I don’t want to. If I don’t have to take Valium, I don’t want to,” Whoopi stated. “If I can rub something [topical], and get relief—I’m all for that,”

Tyson also had Dr. Staci Gruber, the Director of the Marijuana Investigations for neuroscientific Discovery (MIND), answering questions during that episode regarding pill addiction. “It’s not about will, you cannot stop yourself . . . you have no choice, you are fighting biology,” Gruber stated.

The conversation moved to the legality of cannabis, with Tyson questioning why medical cannabis is federally illegal if there is evidence to show that it can be a successful form of treatment. Gruber plainly admitted that this is partially because there are more established policies that have been approved, with little to no scientific evidence to support it. Gruber also noted that in an ideal future, laws would be “formed by science.”

Although Tyson isn’t an outspoken advocate of cannabis, after the reviewing the information presented in the episode, he confirmed that some changes need to be made to the United State’s current process in regulating and allowing cannabis, “So somebody needs to be out there saying, here is the science—here is what we know and here is what we don’t know,” he said. “Let’s make laws based on the science that we do know.”