Fox News blames the increase in gun violence against weed in Washington DC

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Washington DC is suffering from a severe wave of gun violence and Fox News wants you to think that weed is to blame.

DC Police Chief Robert Contee held a press conference last Friday to discuss the recent surge in violent crime. The boss outlined a number of issues that contributed to this crime wave, including the post-pandemic economic recession, insufficient resources for the police force, and the proliferation of readily available firearms. Contee also cited the city’s cannabis black market as another factor driving this new wave of gun violence.

“We adopted the mindset that marijuana isn’t a really big issue in our town,” he said, according to Rolling Stone. “I can tell you that there is no doubt that marijuana is linked to violent crime in our city.”

This Monday, the presenters of the Fox & Friends morning show picked up the last of these comments in a news segment about the DC crime wave. The hosts selected Contee’s testimony linking marijuana to gun violence while conveniently ignoring the other serious issues he raised. The chief’s comment was skewed to suggest that weed was the only factor leading to this wave of violence, and the hosts even went so far as to suggest that cannabis use caused “psychosis.”

But in the actual press conference, Contee made it very clear that he blamed the increasing violence specifically on black market cannabis dealers and not on consumers. “When you have something where people get high rewards and can make a lot of money selling illegal marijuana and the risk of being accountable is very low, you are in a very, very, very, very, very bad situation,” said the boss, Rolling Stone reports. “These people are being robbed, these people are being shot at, these people are being drawn into disputes all over our city. I see that it happens more and more often. “

The gap between federal and district cannabis laws is largely responsible for keeping the city’s black market weed traders in business. DC voters passed a law legalizing adult personal cannabis possession and use in 2014, but that law continues to prohibit the sale of adult cannabis. With no legal source of weed available for sale, gray and black market traders emerged to fill the void.

DC officials quickly realized their mistake and tried to legalize adult sales, but GOP lawmakers thwarted their plans. Every year since the district passed its weed bill, Congress has added a tab to the federal annual budget bill preventing the city from using its own funds to regulate the legal weed sales. President Biden continues to campaign for that ban today, but there is still a chance that Democratic-controlled Congress will remove that tab for good.

The Fox hosts’ claims that weed is responsible for psychosis and violent crime have also been thoroughly refuted by science. Researchers haven’t found a causal link between cannabis use and psychosis, and recent studies have shown that correlations between weed and mental illness are explained by the fact that people with schizophrenia or depression are more likely to use cannabis.

Contrary to the claims of prohibitionists, several research studies have also found that violent crime has declined in states that have legalized medicinal cannabis or adult cannabis. Studies have shown that crime rates declined in Colorado, Washington, and other states shortly after adult use laws went into effect. And just this month, a comprehensive analysis released by the National Bureau of Economic Research confirmed that there is no link between legal weed and violent crime or problem substance abuse.