She’s back

Continuing on her crusade against marijuana as medicine (except when it’s sold by a company she works for), Andrea Barthwell has resurfaced in Ohio.

Dr. Andrea Barthwell says she’s seen marijuana shops pop up like liquor stores. “These people move in with a vengeance,” she says. The former adviser to President George W. Bush is warning against legalizing the drug for medical purposes. “It’s full of contaminates, bird droppings, animal carcases and it exposes the sick and dying to a number of potential problems,” Barthwell adds. […] They point to data from Colorado, which legalized medical marijuana in 2000. From 2006 to 2011, traffic fatalities from drivers testing positive for marijuana increased 46 percent. In 2011, drug usage among kids 12-17 was higher than the national average. Barthwell’s goal is to stop all that from happening here in Ohio.

For those new to this blog, Andrea and I go way back.

In 2005, I broke the story about Andrea’s traveling con job, including the fact that she falsified sponsor information to suppport her Illinois Marijuana Lecture series.

I then covered her move as a Snake Oil Salesman, shilling for a company that sells medical marijuana while still going around opposing medical marijuana.

Later, Barthwell created an organization called “Coalition to End Needless Death on our Roadways,” publishing a “Fatal 15” list each year which they promoted in the media (big scare stories) based on NHTSA data. The only problem is, they didn’t use the data properly and their results were completely false and misleading. I created this page to alert the media to the scam, and before long, her organization evaporated.

Andrea is a con artist who loves to see her name in print and can’t seem to do anything without lying or distorting the truth in some way.

Keep alert, Ohio.

[Thanks, Tom]

Update: Here’s another article:

“There is no instance where marijuana is superior to anything that is currently on the market,” said Dr. Andrea Barthwell, a former deputy director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. “There is no need for it. There is no room for it. There is no place for it in the physicians’ toolbox.” She claims there is not enough good medical research to show that marijuana has any positive effect except “an anecdotal finding that marijuana gives people the munchies.” Barthwell worries that, if it is legalized in Ohio, we will see the drug become more easily available, especially to teens and children. She also argues that medical marijuana would set modern medicine back by over a century because it would open the door to letting ballot issues and lawmakers, not science and medical experts, determine what medicine should be on the market.

“Set modern medicine back by over a century.” Wow.

Now this particular article also has an anecdote from someone else (not Andrea) that really set me on edge…

At a Statehouse news conference, Coleman told the story of a client who explained the difference between drunk driving and drugged driving. “With beer, you don’t see the red light. With marijuana, you see the red light, and you don’t care,” he said.

Noooooooooo!!!!

What a horrible (and inaccurate) distortion of my joke: