Anti-pot writer Alex Berenson is permanently banned from Twitter

Alex Berenson – author of Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence – has been permanently banned from the microblogging platform Twitter for spreading misinformation. While Berenson is known for his vocal opposition to the legalization of cannabis, this time around he was punished for spreading false information about COVID-19.

On his Substack page, Berenson posted a short message titled “Goodbye Twitter” with a screenshot of his original tweet that led to his suspension. Berenson’s tweet that triggered the ban claimed that COVID-19 vaccines weren’t working. “It doesn’t stop the infection. Or broadcast, ”Berenson tweeted. “Don’t think of it as a vaccine.”

Twitter officials believe Berenson cannot tell the truth and that the accumulation of misleading tweets warrants a ban.

“The account you mentioned has been permanently banned for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules,” a Twitter spokesman told Fox News when asked on August 28.

“The first four states to be legalized – Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington – have seen a sharp rise in homicides and serious assaults since 2014, according to reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Berenson wrote in a comment for the New York Times. “Police reports and news articles show a clear connection to cannabis in many cases.” Berenson was a former employee of the New York Times several years earlier.

Berenson’s comment was published at the time of publication of Tell Your Children, his book that attempts to link violence to cannabis use. One night, Berenson’s wife, Jacqueline, recalled a case where a man “cut up his grandmother or set his apartment on fire”. Jacqueline later wrote: “Of course he was high, smoked weed all his life.”

Berenson’s comment and book in the New York Times were so misleading that two leading psychologists were forced to expose the Guardian article.

Carl L Hart is the Chair and Ziff Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Columbia University and the author of High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery that Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society. Charles Ksir is Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Wyoming and the author of Drugs, Society and Human Behavior.

“In the 1930s, when there was virtually no scientific data on marijuana, ignorant and racist officials published exaggerated anecdotal reports of its harm and were believed,” the authors write. “Almost 90 years and hundreds of studies later, there is no excuse for these exaggerations or Berenson’s inappropriate conclusions.”

Alex Berenson on censorship

This is by no means the first time a publisher or platform has banned Berenson for spreading misinformation. Amazon denied having participated in any of its brochures. Berenson’s former employer The New York Times declined to review his latest novel. In a December comment in the Wall Street Journal, Berenson warned that the COVID-19 pandemic had ushered in “a new age of censorship and repression.”

In a comment in Reason, the author stated that while Berenson was trying to scare people off of cannabis and grossly underestimated the death toll from COVID-19, banning Berenson permanently from Twitter was a mistake. Banning him from Twitter can only make things worse. The effects of banning one person could be extended to another.

The author stated that Berenson will only benefit more, if at all, from his “martyrdom” of Twitter. “COVID-19 has allowed Berenson to fully assume his role as a delusional supplier,” the article reads, but a ban will only fuel the opposition’s fire against those opinions.

Berenson’s ban quickly became political. “I don’t know Berenson,” tweeted Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas). “But all the Leftie Brown shirts that cheer him on that he’s banned – you are the problem. You support the arbitrary censorship of authoritarian billionaires. & You contribute to the distrust of so many people about Covid information – by silencing dissenting opinions, many are skeptical. “

It is important to note that there are very different opinions about Berenson. Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) called him a “courageous voice of reason” and “a valuable opposing perspective”.