Jeff Sessions: "stupid" to say marijuana can fight opioid epidemic. Research: it may be a good idea.
Jeff Sessions: “stupid” to say marijuana can fight opioid epidemic. Research: it may be a good idea.
Updated by German Lopez@germanrlopezgerman.lopez@vox.com Mar 16, 2017, 11:20am EDT
Attorney General Jeff Sessions can’t believe what people are saying about marijuana and the opioid epidemic.
“I’m astonished to hear people suggest we can solve our heroin crisis — have you heard this? — by having more marijuana,” Sessions said during a speech to a gathering of law enforcement on Wednesday. “I mean, how stupid is that? Give me a break. So we’re going to have to stand up and confront that, tell the truth here. And our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs is bad, that it will destroy your life.”
Sessions is refuting the claim that loosening access to marijuana could help combat the opioid epidemic. The idea: Marijuana is an effective painkiller, so it can substitute some opioid painkillers that have led to the current overdose epidemic. And since marijuana doesn’t cause deadly overdoses and is less addictive than opioids, replacing some use of opioids with pot could prevent some overdose deaths.
But this isn’t the wild theory that Sessions suggests it is. A growing body of research has supported the idea. It’s not definitive research by any means. But with so many Americans dying from opioid overdoses each year, it certainly merits consideration by lawmakers who want to keep medical marijuana illegal at the federal and state levels.
more
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/16/14945064/jeff-sessions-marijuana-opioids
= new reply since forum marked as read
