Anti-Pot Group Compares Marijuana To Orlando Mass Shooting

Anti-marijuana organization, Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), took to Twitter this week to spew some especially crazy anti-pot rhetoric.

The whole thing started when the Oregon chapter of SAM responded to a tweet by Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer.

Blumenauer has been a longtime advocate for legalizing cannabis. He helped make recreational weed legal in Oregon. And he was involved in efforts to get veterans better access to medical marijuana.

Not surprisingly, he’s made some enemies in the anti-pot world.

In the wake of the horrific shooting in Orlando last weekend Blumenauer tweeted:

“Words cannot express my sorrow. Disgusted by this horrific act on the LGBT community & cowardice of those who won’t pass sensible gun laws.”

A short time later the Oregon chapter of SAM sent out a reply:

“@repblumenauer you can’t support 1 threat to public health/public safety and then condemn another. You have failed this state.”

SAM’s response implied that the hateful, deadly, and explicitly homophobic harm caused by the gunman in Orlando was more or less the same as the supposed harm caused by cannabis.

As anyone who’s ever actually studied anything about cannabis knows, this is complete bullsh*t.

And Blumenauer called them out:

“Over 32k dead from gun violence each year in US. ZERO dead from marijuana. Your comparison is delusional & shameful.”

Homophobic?

Beyond being entirely ignorant of how not dangerous cannabis is, SAM’s tweet was also violently homophobic.

Omar Mateen’s attack last weekend was specifically targeting the LGBTQ community. He opened fire on a gay nightclub, and his rampage left 49 dead and many more injured.

SAM’s tweets were a feeble attempt to hijack this tragedy. They ignored the very real pain, suffering, and grieving of the entire LGBTQ community and instead used this as an opportunity to go on a rant about cannabis laws.

Simply put, SAM tried to co-opt the tragedy in Orlando. They sought to capitalize on the deaths of 49 people and use it for their purposes.

They completely ignored the fact that this is about homophobic violence and instead tried to steer the conversation in an entirely unrelated direction, all in an attempt to further their political agenda.

Not surprisingly, when people started calling them out for it, they just deleted all their hateful and ignorant tweets.

This entire thing has to be one of the worst examples of the deep-seated ignorance that too often seems to define extremist anti-cannabis groups like SAM.