To subscribe to Capitol Fax, click here. Pritzker buys into pot myth, but is right on the broader point Thursday, Oct 19, 2017 * Daily Herald on yesterday’s candidate forum… Pritzker thinks legalization [of marijuana] could save lives. “Unfortunately, marijuana is readily available and also unfortunately some of it is laced with heroin. If we legalize it and regulate it, marijuana won’t have those problems,” he said. Laced with heroin? Who’s gonna sell a dime bag of weed and secretly add heroin to it without jacking up the price so high that nobody would buy it? Not a very good business plan. I suppose you could sell weed that’s specifically laced with heroin for a premium price. And you can add pretty much anything to your own stash. * So, I checked with the Pritzker campaign. They sent along the full quote from yesterday… Look there are reasons to legalize marijuana and I favor legalization, but the reasons are less to do with revenue then they are with safety and criminal justice reform. But those are the three reasons that we should legalize it. Let’s talk about safety for a moment. Unfortunately, marijuana is readily available, it just is. And also unfortunately, they’re sometimes laced with heroin. And in fact, I talked to a mother who lost her son to heroin addiction, who got into it, this son – by the way self-medicating for a mental health problem – got into it by smoking marijuana that ended up being laced with heroin and then got into a heroin addiction problem. If we legalize marijuana and we regulate it, marijuana will not have those problems and it’ll – yes, it’s readily available today – it’ll be available in recreational use but regulated. Criminal justice reform – Dan [Biss] talked about that and I think it’s hugely important to recognize how unfair the system has been. And then of course the 350 to 700 million dollars of tax revenue that this state could garner. * From the campaign… “While it is highly uncommon, there are a few cases of overdoses linked to marijuana being laced with stronger drugs. Ultimately, JB was addressing a broader problem of lacing and making the point that illegal marijuana is a lot less safe than if we legalize it and regulate it.” * They also sent me a link to this story… Police in Yarmouth used two doses of Narcan to revive an unresponsive man Saturday afternoon and investigators believe the man may have been experiencing an overdose after smoking marijuana laced with the powerful opioid fentanyl. […] Police said the man and his girlfriend had smoked marijuana earlier in the day “but did not realize it may have been laced with another drug which caused the overdose.” * But Snopes.com looked into the fentanyl angle and found real problems with that story and other stories like it. They concluded that people simply did not want to admit to the cops that they were knowingly doing a drug which could get them busted for a felony, so they lied. Vice also looked into it… Kirk Maxey, who works with law enforcement agencies like the DEA to test suspected synthetic opioids, said that not only would such a mixture be rare—it might not even be scientifically possible. The Cincinnati Enquirer also looked into the topic because of a large number of social media posts and came up empty. Fake news. * Pritzker is right about the broader point. Take the criminal and other unknown elements out of it by legalizing it with reasonable restrictions and taxation. But he should stick to that, and not buy into fringe “Reefer Madness” conspiracies. - Posted by Rich Miller

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