Ron DeSantis confirms he would not legalize adult use if elected president and warns against fentanyl-containing marijuana

On Saturday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would not legalize adult-use cannabis if elected president. In doing so, he confirmed what he said in June and warned about the danger of fentanyl-laced marijuana at the Never Back Down Super PAC in Iowa.

Florida Politics reports that the presidential candidate is preparing for the 2024 presidential election and is taking a tougher stance against adult cannabis use.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t legalize it,” DeSantis said on Never Back Down. “I think what’s happened is that this stuff is very effective now. I think it’s a real, real problem and I think it’s very different from the things people were using 30 or 40 years ago. And I think when kids get into that, I think it causes a lot of problems. And then, you know, of course, now they can throw fentanyl in all that stuff.”

DeSantis launched a bus tour to Chariton, Osceola and Oskaloosa in Iowa last month. The Des Moines Register reports that this is part of his plan to “storm” small towns in Iowa, an early-election state, as he intensifies his campaign against GOP frontrunner Donald Trump. FiveThirtyEight poll averages show that DeSantis supports about 18% of Republican voters, while Trump sits at over 50%.

“The drugs are killing this country,” DeSantis added, although cannabis itself cannot cause a fatal overdose. “While a fatal overdose caused by marijuana alone is unlikely, marijuana is not benign,” the CDC says cautiously. Fentanyl, of course, is a different story: Drug overdose deaths linked to synthetic opioids — most notably fentanyl — continued to rise, with 70,601 overdose deaths reported in 2021.

“We’ve got medical marijuana in our constitution, we’ve got medical marijuana, we’re enforcing that, you know, we’re complying, but to take action now to make it even more available, I wouldn’t do it,” DeSantis said and added Colorado. Adult use only resulted in black market sales. However, DeSantis advocated smokable medicinal cannabis early in his first term, citing people with Lou Gehrig’s disease and other conditions for whom it is not known which method of administration works best.

But in 2022 he took a firm stance against cannabis: “What I don’t like about it is the stench when you go to some of these places where it’s been used, I mean it smells so foul,” he said. “I couldn’t believe the pungent smell that you could smell in some of these places. I don’t want to see that here. I want people to be able to breathe freely.”

During the June campaign in North Augusta, South Carolina, DeSantis was asked by a man who claimed to be speaking on behalf of military veterans who were sick and injured after serving in their country if he would decriminalize cannabis if he would be elected President.

DeSantis said he would not do this because it would affect employee performance. “I think we have too many people using drugs in this country right now,” the Florida governor said. “I think it affects the preparedness of our workforce. I think it affects people’s ability to be successful, and as I learned growing up in the Tampa Bay area of ​​Florida, the kids in high school who participated in the one I was with did , all suffered. All her activities, all her grades and everything like that.”

On Sunday, DeSantis was back in Tallahassee.

Fentanyl and cannabis are very different

Headlines about fentanyl-laced marijuana are worrying but often divergent: The Brattleboro Police Department (BPD) in Vermont told the media that they resuscitated a patient using cardiopulmonary resuscitation and multiple doses of Narcan after the person smoked More had reportedly tested positive for fentanyl in a second incident. Then they had to withdraw their statement:

“The marijuana seized in both incidents was transferred to a forensic lab where testing was conducted,” Brattleboro Police said in a statement. “BPD has been informed that in no case was fentanyl found in the marijuana.”

The same thing happened in New York in 2020, when officials said they had found the drug in cannabis, but then about a week later found that was not the case. “No non-pharmaceutical fentanyl has been found mixed with cannabis in New York City,” the city’s health department said. The New York State Department of Health also clarified, “It’s unlikely to be weed.”

But is smoking fentanyl-laced weed even possible given how it burns? It’s a topic that High Times has dealt with many times before. “It’s unclear if you can consume fentanyl this way — by smoking,” said Dr. Peter Grinspoon, an internist and medical cannabis specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, told High Times in 2021. “Some drugs you can smoke.” , like cocaine, free-based like crack. But fentanyl tends to decompose above about 500 degrees [F], and it completely decays at about 1000 degrees. When you smoke, you’re talking about 2,000 degrees.”

While it could have happened anywhere, it would make little sense for drug dealers to spike fentanyl into marijuana when it’s being smoked given how much of it could be wasted.