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‘Life-Wrecking Dependency’
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‘Just Say No’
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Discusses Personal Morality
Jeff Sessions says marijuana is an addictive drug comparable to heroin. The Attorney General urged a group of law enforcement agents on Wednesday to “focus” on “preventing people from ever taking drugs in the first place,” while speaking on “Efforts to Combat Violent Crime and Restore Public Safety.”
The former Alabama U.S. Senator told local, state, and federal agents, “I realize this may be an unfashionable belief in a time of growing tolerance of drug use. But too many lives are at stake to worry about being fashionable.”
“I reject the idea that America will be a better place if marijuana is sold in every corner store. And I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana – so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for another that’s only slightly less awful. Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs will destroy your life,” Sessions said.
Let’s look at that again.
Marijuana is a “slightly less awful” than heroin, both are “life-wrecking” dependencies, and “using drugs will destroy your life.”
That’s false.
ThinkProgress calls Sessions’ remarks “a malicious string of lies intended to justify dangerous policies.”
That the nation’s top law enforcement officer was comfortable delivering an “unfashionable” “Just Say No” to drugs speech that lacked a basis in scientific fact is truly disturbing. He literally is crafting policy out of personal belief – and personal morality – rather than science.
So, let’s share some science.
TIME reports “there have been no records of people fatally overdosing from only marijuana. Meanwhile, more than 33,000 Americans overdosed and died from prescription painkillers in 2015, while 13,000 heroin-related overdoses killed people in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control.”