Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor, John Fetterman, is running for Senate. He has also been a long time outspoken supporter of cannabis legalization. And as a Democrat candidate running against Republican candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz, Fetterman has been under constant attack. One of the issues Dr. Oz and the Republican party have repeatedly focused on as means to try to undermine Fetterman, is his support of cannabis. And of course, their so called ‘facts’ to prove their anti-cannabis stance are often not facts at all, but instead it’s twisted information out outright false. This week, on Monday’s Fox News, former President Trump’s campaign manager and later Senior Counselor, Kellyanne Conway tried to lash out against Fetterman by mocking his pro-cannabis stance. Conway was on Sean Hannity’s show and took the opportunity to attempt to discredit Fetterman and his campaign. (Watch the video here) Conway spoke of Fetterman’s term as Lieutenant Governor in Pennsylvania and said, “He put the marijuana flag up. He thought that was funny.” She added, “Here’s what’s not funny – that there’s been a doubling of overdose deaths in Pennsylvania while he’s been in office from 2015 to 2021.” She then added, “Fentanyl is rankling every corner of the state.” So much to unpack in this! First, Fetterman added flying the cannabis flag under his office’s American flag a long time before ever announcing any run for Senate. He put this flag up, along with other flags, to show support for causes he believes in. In this case, he has long advocated for cannabis legalization. He doesn’t find cannabis funny, he believes it should be legalized. That’s why it’s being flown. As for the deaths. There has not been a doubling of overdose deaths in Pennsylvania since he has been in office, from 2015 to 2021, as Kellyanne Conway claimed. But, she was close. The Pennsylvania Office of Drug Surveillance and Misuse Prevention reports that there was a 40% increase in drug overdose fatalities from 2015 to 2021, the vast majority from fentanyl or opioids. It isn’t clear how Conway transitioned “he put the marijuana flag up” and “he thought that was funny” to “overdose deaths” and fentanyl being in “every corner of the state.” Not sure if she is implying that cannabis leads to death, or if cannabis leads to fentanyl. It seems clear she wanted to link Fetterman flying the marijuana flag to overdose deaths in the state. And implying it was all something that he found funny. Well, if Conway wants to blame Fetterman for his home state’s fentanyl or opiod crisis, then I guess that would translate to other similar situations. Such as the fact that while Conway served under Trump during his time in office, national overdose deaths also increased. When Trump took office in 2017, the National Institute of Health recorded roughly 70,000 deaths from drug overdose in this country. Four years later when he left office in 2021, there were just over 107,000 deaths. That’s a 35% increase. Pennsylvania’s overdose rate was 40% from 2015 to 2021. The whole counties overdoes rate from 2017 to 2021 was 35%, but that was also in two years less time than Fetterman’s years in office. If you compare the same years, the overdose rate is the same. So if that’s Fetterman’s fault in Pennsylvania, it must also be Trump’s fault nationally. You can’t have one and not the other. Or perhaps it is neither of their personal or political parties faults. Perhaps it is just the overwhelming problem of opioids and fentanyl. Neither of which have anything to do with cannabis. If you’d like, all these numbers can all be easily fact checked through the federal government’s National Health Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. As for Kellyanne Conway … well, she famously coined her own term of “alternative facts,” which she constantly used while she worked in office to describe the former administration’s spin on something. Apparently her take on cannabis and Fetterman are also “alternative facts”…. other wise known as: twisting the truth and lying. Comments are closed.
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