Absurdity, balderdash, and fuckery on the whole unfolded on the usually biased cable information circuit this week. Don’t joke about or point out weed due to the doubling of “overdose deaths,” former White Home advisor Kellyanne Conway stated in so many phrases on Fox Information Monday.

Democratic Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman faces off in opposition to Republican celeb physician Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania’s hot-button U.S. Senate race this fall. Fetterman, from the start, has been outspoken about his pro-marijuana stance.

Dr. Oz, then again, is tougher to inform, each slamming adult-use legalization in Pennsylvania and admitting that marijuana is safer than some pharmaceuticals. The present stance doesn’t precisely align with earlier episodes on The Dr. Oz Present, when he was referred to as a medical marijuana “advocate” a number of years in the past. Dr. Oz now falsely says that legalization results in larger unemployment charges. 

So Fox Information tapped Conway for commentary on the race on September 26, and Conway didn’t disappoint her base.

“He put the marijuana flag up. He thought that was humorous. He’s trolling his opponent. He thinks that’s humorous,” Conway stated of Fetterman’s current feedback. “Right here’s what’s not humorous: that there’s been a doubling of overdose deaths in Pennsylvania whereas he’s been in workplace from 2015 to 2021. Fentanyl is rankling each nook of this state.”

What fentanyl has to do with marijuana is anybody’s finest guess. The conflation of marijuana with overdoses has been debunked by a number of authorities companies.

The Nationwide Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) admits there has by no means been a deadly overdose recorded from hashish alone. The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) additionally says an overdose from hashish is “unlikely.”

Fentanyl is a very totally different story. In 2021, 107,622 complete drug overdoses have been recorded, and the bulk, or 66% of these deaths, are associated to artificial opioids like fentanyl.

In Pennsylvania particularly, troubled areas are riddled with folks combating opioid dependancy, which was documented within the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia final month. However Salon experiences that almost all of central Philadelphia is gentrified and the drug disaster is healthier off than it has been previously. Focusing solely on the state’s troubled areas doesn’t present an correct image.

Social Media Mockery

Unsurprisingly, Conway was brutally dragged each on social media and in the media, Newsweek experiences. Yahoo! Information referred to as Conway’s feedback a “brazen marijuana lie,” gaining over 3,000 shares, whereas the U.Okay.-based Impartial wrote that she was “mocked for blaming overdose deaths on marijuana.” HuffPost and AOL Information reported that she was “gaslighting everybody.”

Former GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, who left the Republican get together and renounced his membership, tweeted on Tuesday, “I assumed John Fetterman put it as much as protest the abject stupidity of the US Govt spending $50 billion in taxpayer cash on a marijuana campaign that’s riddled with hypocrisy. Who will get locked up? Black folks. Marijuana and Fentanyl have as a lot to do with one another as Coors.”

“It’s all nonsense,” Schmidt continued. “Hashish is authorized in lots of states and has by no means killed anybody. [Kellyanne Conway] has much less credibility than Trump and will be the solely American who stands as a real peer of his on the subject of mendacity. She offered out America for fame and energy. Not credible.”

Political commentator Cheri Jacobus truly did the mathematics and figured that for those who multiply zero instances two, the quantity continues to be zero: “If marijuana deaths have been doubled, the quantity would nonetheless be zero, you gaslighting cartoon.”

Dr. Jorge Caballero additionally did the mathematics, however in line graph type, saying {that a} mannequin of marijuana overdoses would appear like a very degree line of zero.

“In case you look actually carefully you’ll be able to nearly see the imaginary line of marijuana overdose deaths on this chart of U.S. authorities information from the final 22 years,” Caballero tweeted.

Presently, Dr. Oz trails Fetterman within the Pennsylvania race, however polling numbers stay comparatively shut.

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