Kellyanne Conway links weed to ‘overdose deaths’ in Pennsylvania race debate

Absurdity, nonsense, and frigging in general unfolded in the often biased cable news circles this week. Don’t joke about pot or mention it because of the doubling of “overdose deaths,” former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said in so many words on Fox News Monday.

John Fetterman, Lt. gov. of Pennsylvania Democrats, meets celebrity Republican doctor Mehmet Oz in the Pennsylvania US Senate this fall. Fetterman has been open about his pro-marijuana stance from the start.

dr Oz, on the other hand, is harder to say, as he both criticizes the legalization of adult use in Pennsylvania and admits that marijuana is safer than some prescription drugs. The current stance does not exactly match previous episodes of Dr. Oz Show when he was referred to as a medical marijuana “advocate” a few years ago. dr Oz is now wrongly saying that legalization leads to higher unemployment rates.

So Fox News reached out to Conway for comment on the Sept. 26 race, and Conway didn’t disappoint their base.

“He raised the marijuana flag. He thought that was funny. He trolls his opponent. He thinks it’s funny,” Conway said of Fetterman’s recent comments. “This is not funny: that Pennsylvania has seen overdose deaths double while he was in office from 2015 to 2021.

One can only guess what fentanyl has to do with marijuana. Confusing marijuana with overdoses has been debunked by several government agencies.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) concedes that there has never been a fatal overdose from cannabis alone. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also says that a cannabis overdose is “unlikely.”

Fentanyl is a whole different story. A total of 107,622 drug overdoses were recorded in 2021 and the majority or 66% of these deaths are related to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.

In Pennsylvania in particular, trouble spots are riddled with people struggling with opioid addiction, as documented last month in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. But Salon reports that most of central Philadelphia is gentrified and the drug crisis is better off than it has been in the past. Focusing only on the state’s crisis areas does not provide an accurate picture.

Unsurprisingly, Conway was brutally bullied both on social media and in the media, Newsweek reports. Yahoo! News called Conway’s comments a “blatant marijuana lie” and gained over 3,000 shares, while the UK-based Independent wrote that she was “ridiculed for blaming marijuana overdose deaths.” HuffPost and AOL News reported that she “gaslighted everyone.”

I thought @JohnFetterman put it up to protest the abject stupidity of the US government spending $50 billion in taxpayer dollars on a marijuana crusade steeped in hypocrisy. Who will be imprisoned? Black. Marijuana and fentanyl have as much in common as Coors https://t.co/bY4Ohin7x3

— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) September 27, 2022

Former GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, who left the Republican Party and relinquished his membership, tweeted Tuesday, “I thought John Fetterman put it up to protest the abject stupidity of the US government that wasted $50 billion in taxpayers’ money Spends on a marijuana crusade messed with hypocrisy. Who will be imprisoned? Black. Marijuana and fentanyl have as much in common as Coors.”

“This is all nonsense,” Schmidt continued. “Cannabis is legal in many states and has never killed anyone. [Kellyanne Conway] has less credibility than Trump and may be the only American to match him for lying. She sold America for fame and power. Not trustworthy.”

Political commentator Cheri Jacobus actually did the math and found that if you multiply zero times two, the number is still zero: “If marijuana deaths doubled, the number would still be zero, you gaslighting cartoon.”

If you look really closely you can almost see the imaginary line of marijuana overdose deaths on this chart of US government data for the last 22 years pic.twitter.com/sIdh8cJ50s

– dr Jorge Caballero stands with 🇺🇦 (@DataDrivenMD) on September 27, 2022

dr Jorge Caballero also did the math, but in the form of a line graph, and said that a model of marijuana overdoses would look like a perfectly flat line from zero.

“If you look really closely, you can almost see the imaginary line of marijuana overdose deaths on this chart of US government data for the last 22 years,” Caballero tweeted.

Currently Dr. Oz trails Fetterman in Pennsylvania race, but poll numbers remain relatively close.