Democratic presidential candidate MIchael Bloomberg said a father and son who both died of heroin overdoses were “not a good family” in a video from the Bermuda Executive Forum in Manhattan in 2019.

“Here, 72,000 Americans died in 2017 from overdoses.The New York Daily News had a picture on the front page of a father and a son - they both OD’d at the same party. I mean, it’s not a good family. Craziness,” Mr Blooomberg said.

The crowd of executives laughed at the quip.

The story is a reference to a 2017 article in the New York Daily News covering the overdoses of Joseph Andrade and his son Carlos.

Mr Bloomberg uses the joke to springboard into criticising marijuana legalization efforts, equivocating marijuana with the fentanyl-laced heroin that fueled many of the OD deaths of the opioid crisis.

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“And then we are going hellbent for whether in this country to legalize marijuana, another addictive drug, where we’ve never done the research to what it does to people,” Mr Bloomberg said. “Maybe, in the end, it’s going to turn out that it doesn’t hurt, but preliminary evidence shows it reduces a teenage user of marijuana’s IQ by 10 points and it doesn’t come back.”

The broader context of the clip began when the panel’s host asked Mr Bloomberg what problems he saw facing the business community.

“Bloomberg is a global organization and it touches all aspects of the global economy, through your news services - you’re up to date. So maybe you can tell us a little about what you see as the biggest challenges facing companies today,” he says.

Mr Bloomberg responded that “labor” is the biggest challenge, and complained that too many potential employees are using drugs and lack the skills needed to be hired.

“If you’re really looking at the people looking for a job, some of the estimates are that half of them have such a drug problem that they’ll never get work ever again,” he said. “I was with Jim Mattis the other day and only 25 percent of young people in America could qualify to join the military if they wanted to. They’re not in physical shape, they can’t read, they can’t write, and the drug problem is just something that’s astronomical.”

The Bloomberg campaign issued a statement in response to The Hill’s coverage of the clip, arguing that “Mike Bloomberg has led the fight to end opioid and prescription drug abuse, has a comprehensive plan to tackle it as president, and understand the terrible crisis that is destroying communities across the country.” The campaign then pointed to Mr Bloomberg’s charitable donations meant to address the opioid epidemic.