When states legalize medical marijuana, black-market cannabis tainted with the deadly opiate fentanyl appears, a leading marijuana legalization opponent told the Kentucky State Legislature earlier this month \u2014 a demonstrably false claim that has been repeatedly debunked.<\/p>\n
Kevin A. Sabet, a social scientist who holds a PhD from Oxford University and who served as a policy adviser in the Office of National Drug Control Policy, is also co-founder and president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), perhaps the country\u2019s most prominent organization dedicated to opposing marijuana legalization. SAM (and Sabet) can generally be found whenever a medical marijuana or legalization ballot measure is before voters.<\/p>\n
On Sept. 14, Sabet was in Frankfort, Kentucky,\u00a0to give testimony<\/a>\u00a0at a committee meeting of the Kentucky General Assembly regarding medical marijuana.<\/p>\n Efforts to legalize medical marijuana in Kentucky reached an impasse earlier this year, but state Rep. James Nemes (R-Louisville)\u00a0has vowed to introduce a similar bill next year.<\/a><\/p>\n If he does, and if it passes, Kentucky can expect to see marijuana tainted with the deadly opiate fentanyl, Sabet told lawmakers during his testimony.<\/p>\n During his lengthy presentation, Sabet presented a flowchart under the heading of \u201cThe Cycle of \u2018Tax and Regulate.\u2019\u201d According to Sabet\u2019s chart, when a state legalizes medical marijuana, the black market so undercuts a regulated, legal market that cannabis \u201cadulterated\u201d with additives like fentanyl appear.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happens when a state legalizes? We often see a cycle,\u201d Sabet told the committee. \u201cAnd I think it\u2019s important to understand the cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt starts with medical marijuana. It does give cover to the black market, especially if you have a lot of home growing,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt increases supply, it lowers the price. The black market undercuts the legal price, so the black market is thriving in a lot of these states. We see adulterated products in a lot of these black market materials, like fentanyl and others.\u201d<\/p>\n After the fentanyl, eventually, comes lobbyists and then finally recreational marijuana legalization, according to Sabet.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a cycle that we have seen in state, after state, after state,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Check for yourself. The segment begins at around the 49-minute mark.<\/p>\n Much of what Sabet said is mostly true. States that have legalized recreational cannabis, including California, Colorado, and Oregon, still see large black markets<\/a>. And recreational and medical-marijuana laws have often been abused \u2014 or broken outright \u2014 as cover for the black market.<\/p>\n But it was not immediately clear what factual basis, if any, there is for Sabet\u2019s fentanyl claim.<\/p>\n Smart Approaches to Marijuana did not respond to emails seeking comment from Cannabis Now, and Sabet \u2014 a frequent user of social media \u2014 did not respond to a tweet sent to his personal account.<\/p>\n Sabet\u2019s claim that marijuana-policy reform leads to marijuana tainted with a deadly drug blamed for America\u2019s drug overdose crisis went unchallenged by the lawmakers in the room.<\/p>\n However, it appears to have no basis in reality and, in fact, is demonstrably false.<\/p>\n In 2017, several reports \u2014 all from states where legal medical marijuana was not yet available \u2014 claiming that cannabis laced with fentanyl had been discovered were later found to have been based on faulty reporting,\u00a0according to Snopes.<\/a><\/p>\n Earlier this year in Tennessee<\/a>, the head of a state narcotics task force incorrectly told local media that his agency had discovered fentanyl-laced marijuana. That claim was retracted by an agency spokeswoman, who said it was made in error.<\/p>\n In their zeal to oppose marijuana legalization, Sabet and his organization are known for making outlandish and sometimes shameless statements.<\/p>\n In an op-ed published in the Detroit Free Press<\/a>\u00a0on the same day Hurricane Florence was bearing down on North Carolina,\u00a0Sabet compared marijuana legalization to the deadly storm<\/a>, which to date has killed at least 48 people.<\/p>\n But with the fentanyl fib, SAM may have sunk to its lowest low yet. Sabet made this at-best questionable claim in an\u00a0extremely sensitive environment<\/a>, where fentanyl is a well-known killer.<\/p>\n Drug overdoses in Kentucky increased by more than 11.5 percent last year,\u00a0according to data released in July<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 with fentanyl being the chief cause.<\/p>\n Making this demonstrably false claim in a state that has been hit hard by opiate overdose deaths is either an unbelievably careless mistake \u2014 or a nakedly cynical move made to conflate the two drugs in order to sow confusion and fear.<\/p>\n Which is it? SAM won\u2019t say.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/b>, do you buy the argument that medical marijuana leads to other black market substances like fentanyl?<\/p>\n The post Legalization Foe Claims Medical Marijuana Leads to Fentanyl<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
When states legalize medical marijuana, black-market cannabis tainted with the deadly opiate fentanyl appears, a leading marijuana legalization opponent told the Kentucky State Legislature earlier this month \u2014 a demonstrably false claim that has been repeatedly debunked. Kevin A. Sabet, a social scientist who holds a PhD from Oxford UniversityContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4588,50,1114,6058,90,139,356,1438],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29656"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29656"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29657,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29656\/revisions\/29657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Legalization Foe Claims Medical Marijuana Leads to Fentanyl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"