"I'm not an expert," said shiny new DEA leader Chuck Rosenberg in regards to whether marijuana is more dangerous than heroin. He seems qualified.
Today in "people who are dubiously qualified for their jobs": Chuck Rosenberg, the new leader of the DEA, has come out with a warning that heroin is "probably" more dangerous than marijuana. Yes, and guns are "probably" more dangerous than butterfly kisses …
To bolster his statement, Rosenberg added he is "not an expert" on the topic of whether heroin is more dangerous than weed.
“If you want me to say that marijuana’s not dangerous, I’m not going to say that because I think it is,” Rosenberg said on a press call. “Do I think it’s as dangerous as heroin? Probably not."
… "Probably?"
Okay, let's see. Number of heroin deaths in 2013 — the year weed was legalized in Colorado: 8,500 (according to NIH statistics).
Number of weed deaths ever: 0.
Clearly, leader of the DEA is one of those "no experience necessary" jobs.
Rosenberg is a former prosecutor whose stance on drug reform is somewhat of a mystery. He has said that he's ordered his agents not to prioritize marijuana enforcement, yet he's also stated that they're still prioritizing it.
K.
He also said this in regards to his stance on weed: “Let me say it this way: I’d rather be in a car accident going 30 miles an hour than 60 miles an hour, but I’d prefer not to be in a car accident at all.”
… What? We guess having a DEA leader who speaks in riddles and limericks is actually kind of fun He's basically saying, "Pot is dangerous because there was a green house. Inside the green house there was a white house. Inside the white house there was a red house. Inside the red house there were lots of babies." WEEEE!
Amazingly, despite Rosenberg's Rube-Goldberg-style thought process, it seems his colleagues actually view his opinions on marijuana as much more informed and equitable than his predecessors'.
Michele Leonhart, the HBIC before Rosenberg, was famous for making comparisons of pot to crack and heroin, and that it’s an “insidious” drug. Leonhart resigned in May in the wake of a scandal involving agents participating in sex parties.
"That's a great improvement over the previous administrator who was incapable of distinguishing heroin from marijuana," said Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn about Rosenberg's improvement on Leonhart's policies. "The real question that one day will be asked and correctly answered is: Is marijuana a more dangerous drug than alcohol?"
Again, let's see.
Every day, an average of six Americans die of alcohol poisoning, according to the NIH.
Every day, zero people die of weed overdoses. Every year, zero people die of weed overdoses. Every millennia … you see where we're going with this.
Back to Rosenberg. His drug enforcement plans, as of right now, are to focus on heroin and opioids, but he's definitely still down to enforce some good old fashioned weed cases.
“I’ve also told them we are not going to shy away from doing marijuana cases where appropriate," he said. "We want to do the biggest and most important cases there are.”
Rosenberg was on the call to promote a DEA prescription drug take-back program that aims to reduce the number of unused prescription opioids in households in a bid to cut down on their misuse and address a common gateway to heroin use. A study last year found states that allow medical marijuana for treatment of conditions like pain have fewer opioid overdose deaths.
Anyway, we don't really care who's in charge of enforcing marijuana regulations right now, because we're sitting pretty in Colorado … and by pretty we mean we're baked out of our minds. We don't even know what Illinois is right now … but we hope they're having fun getting busted for spliff possession!
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