Article Image

IPFS News Link • Trump Administration

Dear Donald Trump: You Can't Fight the Opiate Epidemic WITHOUT Legal Cannabis

• http://thefreethoughtproject.com

President Donald Trump recently spoke out about the national opioid epidemic and discussed his game plan to address it. He said there is a need to "focus on prevention and law enforcement" and touted his "past executive actions to strengthen law enforcement and dismantle criminal cartels." Why is our president, who once demanded an end to the drug war, now accelerating it by focusing on old tactics and abandoning medical marijuana as an instrument in the opiate recovery process?
More research than ever before has led Americans to understand that cannabis is not only a substance that should not be equated to harder drugs like heroin and cocaine, but it actually has therapeutic benefits and has the potential to treat a variety of conditions. Medical marijuana regulations in various states allow its use for issues including cancer; HIV and AIDS; PTSD; Alzheimer's disease; Crohn's disease; seizures and epilepsy; and chronic pain, which was often treated by opiates until the medical community vaguely acknowledged that treating chronic pain with a highly addictive substance was causing serious repercussions on patients.

New Administration, Familiar Rhetoric

Attorney General Jeff Sessions started off at his new post by making damning comments that deceptively conflate recreational and medical use of cannabis and the opiate crisis. With uninformed, generalized statements like "I'm not sure we're going to be a better, healthier nation if we have marijuana sold at every corner grocery store" and "good people don't use marijuana," Sessions shows how out of touch he is with modern research. In a speech on March 15th, Sessions continued to share his outdated views by declaring "I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana – so people can trade one life-wrecking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."


 


JonesPlantation