The Media’s Embrace of “Fake News” About DrugsJanuary 30, 2017DeForest Rathbone, chairman of the National Institute of Citizen Anti-drug Policy (NICAP), says one of the most notorious examples of “fake news” in the media is the notion that marijuana is medicine. He is so alarmed by the misinformation being spread by the media about marijuana and other aspects of the growing drug problem that he sponsored a full-page advertisement in Monday’s Washington Times, urging President Donald Trump to personally follow through on his promise to address “the growing national public health crisis of soaring drug addiction and overdose deaths.” “There is virtually no one in America today who does not personally know of a drug-related tragedy among his family, neighbors or friends,” the ad says. However, Rathbone says the media have played down the serious nature of the crisis. “We have become intimately aware that the nation’s current drug crisis is far greater than is being reported in the mainstream news media,” the ad goes on to say. The ad expresses support for the President’s commitment to stop the proliferation of drugs across the southern border and throughout the nation. In his inaugural address, Trump declared that drugs “have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.” On the campaign trail, he repeatedly condemned the illegal drug trade, noting the amount of heroin flowing across the southern border and the rising number of overdose deaths. The current reporting of annual overdose deaths at 50,000 “represents only about a third of the actual 150,000 total drug-related deaths,” the ad says. “That total includes additional deaths from drug-related illnesses, accidents, and crime.” The problem goes beyond heroin and overdose deaths, Rathbone said. The ad notes the growing acceptance by some “Stoner States” of marijuana and its alleged “medical” benefits. However, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently reaffirmed the scientific evidence that there is no medical use for smoked marijuana. “Marijuana is dope, not medicine,” the ad states. In this case, it’s the far-left marijuana lobby that is truly “anti-science.” Rathbone told Accuracy in Media that his ad, endorsed by many anti-drug organizations, is part of his effort to counter media propaganda in favor of the drug culture. However, despite his telephone number and email address being featured at the top of the ad, he has yet to receive any calls from the media about the ad and what parents believe needs to be done about the growing drug crisis. “In the last eight years, owing to a lack of enforcement of federal narcotics laws, marijuana use has escalated from 7 to 13% of the U.S. population,” the ad states. “Fueled by the insatiable demand for all illicit drugs, there are now roughly twice as many gang members in the U.S. as law enforcement personnel, breeding violent crime and civil unrest, mostly focused on our youth.” This information “needs to be exposed,” Rathbone told AIM. He said the Trump Administration has to be informed and educated about “how bad the carnage is” throughout the country. “This is far worse than anybody is talking about,” he said. The ad cites the following examples of the damage that is being inflicted on the American people:
The ad expresses the hope that new Attorney General Jeff Sessions will declare the pre-eminence of federal over state laws and “restore prosecution of violations of federal drug laws.” Rathbone told AIM that he also believes the Trump administration must declare that the nation’s current drug problems “constitute a national and growing urgent public health crisis.”
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Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. - www.usasurvival.org For updates, please use the contact form at www.usasurvival.org Visit Cliff Kincaid's website at www.usasurvival.org
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