A record number of Americans died from various drug overdoses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yet while the media, politicians, and corporations may pay lip service to these tragedies, they also continually promote widespread use of marijuana and other “harmless” drugs.
Unlike coronavirus, which mainly targets the old and unhealthy, OxyContin, fentanyl, and heroin — often arriving via Mexican cartel — kill the young, old, healthy and sick.
The death and destruction of families likely would be minimized if pharmaceutical executives, government regulators, and law enforcement heeded warning signs.
But OxyContin made gargantuan sums of money for groups like Purdue Pharma, and the millions in fines they paid the last 15 years is a drop in the bucket to them.
Due to an intense push to change perceptions of drugs, we are told about the long-term safety of “recreational” cannabis, now legal in nearly half our states, despite remaining a Schedule I controlled substance. The days of dorm room pot dealers are mostly gone, since cannabis is a multi-billion dollar, corrupt industry.
Travel the highways across America and you’ll see cannabis ads on billboards; even rural towns have dispensaries that remained open last year as churches and schools were forced to close.
Kevin Sabet worked on anti-drug policy for three consecutive presidential administrations, Democrat and Republican. He published a book detailing his fight against cannabis legalization this year. Unsurprisingly, the consequential work received almost no media attention.
Sabet bemoans the lack of concerns from those in power.
Politicians shrug their shoulders, law enforcement has other priorities due to our ongoing urban crime wave, and industry-funded studies form a lazy media consensus.
Most cable news talkers claim weed is innocuous, yet science suggests the opposite is true. A connection between marijuana and psychosis exists. Virtually every recent mass shooter in the United States, for example, was a weed user. I wonder if the anti-gun groups know these facts.
How do lawmakers justify this? They believe marijuana is popular with young people and, like legalized gambling, brings in enormous revenue. So unanimity forms among the elites.
Liberals have been pro-weed forever. And on the libertarian right, Fox News analysts like Lisa Kennedy and Kat Timpf — who would also legalize heroin — repeat the “people can do anything they want as long as they don’t harm others” cliché. This is asinine. We all have family members and live in the same inter-connected society. Destroying your mind with drugs is not a victimless crime.
And for animal lovers, my veterinarian friend down the street says he treats “many animals each week for poisoning from eating their owner’s stash.”
The deleterious effects of marijuana will undeniably come into focus during the coming years. They will be irresponsibly explained away or ignored, despite warnings.
A.J. Kaufman
A.J. Kaufman is an Alpha News columnist. His work has appeared in the Baltimore Sun, Florida Sun-Sentinel, Indianapolis Star, Israel National News, Orange County Register, St. Cloud Times, Star-Tribune, and across AIM Media Midwest and the Internet. Kaufman previously worked as a school teacher and military historian.
