Crazy 'Pot Will Make You Sell Your Children' Warning from Otherwise Sane Senator

Here at NORML we are used to seeing some hysterical, unfounded claims made about the ills of cannabis. However, even we were shocked when a supporter from Iowa sent us Senator Tom Harkin’s (D, IA) raging, reefer madness-esque reply to his note asking him to justify why medicinal cannabis is still illegal after the second largest medical association in the country, the American College of Physicians, publicly backed rescheduling of cannabis and the protection of patients who use it for medicinal purposes. Here’s the highlights of the reply he received (full text here):

Dear XXXX:

Thank you for contacting me. I am always glad to hear from you.

Marijuana is often the drug singled out for legalization. However, marijuana is not the recreational drug that many believe it to be. In a study completed by the Drug Abuse Warning Network, the number of marijuana related emergencies has nearly reached the level of cocaine related emergencies. As this statistic indicates, marijuana use often has fatal consequences.

I was deeply troubled when I learned of another recent study which found that nearly one-third of all eighth graders had tried marijuana. As the father of two daughters, it greatly disturbs me that children are exposed to drugs at such a young age. I am concerned that legalization of this drug will only increase the number of children who gain access to its harmful effects.

The victims of the drug war are many -- the small child whose parents are so addicted to illegal drugs that they sell everything including perhaps their own children to obtain a fix; the police officer’s family which must now learn to cope with the loss of their loved one as a result of a violent drug bust gone awry. These are the people I think of when I say that drugs pose a significant threat to the security of this nation.

Legalizing drugs is equivalent to declaring surrender in the war on drugs. However we may differ in tactics, I am hopeful that we can work together to fight drugs in our communities and to make Iowa drug free.

Again, thanks for sharing your views with me. Please don’t hesitate to let me know how you feel on any issue that concerns you.

Sincerely,

Tom Harkin

United States Senator

(Emphases mine)

Okay, so setting aside the fact that Senator Harkin’s response pertains to legalization of marijuana, and not medical cannabis as the constituent asked about, let’s deconstruct some of the myths propagated in this letter.

1. “The number of marijuana related emergencies has nearly reached the level of cocaine related emergencies. As this statistic indicates, marijuana use often has fatal consequences.”

This is an untruth propagated by the drug czar’s minions. The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) collects its data on ‘marijuana related emergencies’ by noting every single time someone tells their doctor that they use marijuana. So if I were to accidentally break my leg and go to the ER, and my doctor asked if I use any drugs and I say I occasionally smoke marijuana (as I should, as we should all be honest with our physicians), then this would be a ‘marijuana related emergency,’ even if I hadn’t smoked in weeks.

And fatal? Please! As Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School Lester Grinspoon wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association, “There is no known case of a lethal overdose; on the basis of animal models, the ratio of lethal to effective dose is estimated as 40,000 to 1. By comparision, the ratio is…between 4 and 10 to 1 for ethanol (alcohol).” Additionally, a 1994 report by the Australian National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre found that “There are no recorded cases of fatalities attributable to cannabis, and the extrapolated lethal dose from animal studies cannot be achieved by recreational users."