US Attorney General Finally Admits Marijuana Isnt a Gateway Drug Prescription Pills AreBy Alice Salles But U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch recently told a group of Kentucky high school students the role of marijuana in the national drug abuse debate has been overstated. While discussing heroin abuse and how individuals often develop an addiction, Lynch argued: [I]ndividuals [start out] with a prescription drug problem, and then because they need more and more, they turn to heroin. It isnt so much that marijuana is the step right before using prescription drugs or opioids it is true that if you tend to experiment with a lot of things in life, you may be inclined to experiment with drugs, as well. But its not like were seeing that marijuana as a specific gateway. Attorney General Lynchadded that instead of trafficking rings, what introduce[s] a person to opioids [is] the household medicine cabinet. The event she attended was part of the Prescription Opioid Heroin Epidemic Awareness Week, a campaign designed by the White House that includes 250 different events highlighting the importance of prevention, enforcement, and treatment. As expected, the campaign focused on advertising the official approach to drug abuse, encouraging the public to support the Obama administrations approach to the opioid crisis. Measures embraced by the administration include expanding evidence-based prevention and treatment programs, increasing access to the overdose-reversal medicine naloxone, and supporting targeted enforcement activities. But nowhere in the official campaign page is there a list of practical solutions to the opioid crisis, an admission of guilt, or a concession stating that, despite marijuanas official federal classification, cannabis is not seen as the root of the problem by the very head of the United States Department of Justice. In early August, the Obama administration said no to a bid urging the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to reconsider how marijuana is classified under federal drug control laws. Currently, the DEA lists marijuana as a Schedule I drug, along with heroin, the pivot drug of the opioid epidemic. But as the Attorney Generalscomments demonstrate, the federal government fails to take its own classification methodology seriously, choosing instead to contend that prescription drug abuse is a much bigger issue. Per its federal classification, marijuana should be seen as a threat as dangerous as heroin, and yet Lynch appears to contend the abuse of legal drugs is keeping federal agents busy not the enforcement of her agencys own rules. What Lynch is failing to discuss on the federal governments anti-opioid abuse campaign trail is the racist, opportunistic roots of the failed and decades-long drug war in America. But as American states begin to shift their approach to some of the targets of this nationwide anti-drug campaign, legalized marijuana is able to accomplish what many drug war apologists claimed criminalization would achieve: bringing down the drug cartels. But as the Washington Post report demonstrates, legalizing pot is not enough. While powerful drug cartels have seen legalized marijuana taking a chunk out of their profits, the criminalization of other drugs such as heroin continues to put addicts in harms way. With drug cartels seeing an increase in demand due to the pressure mounting from the growth of the relationship between the government and the pharmaceutical industry, dangerous alternatives to heroin, such as fentanyl, are sold on the street as regular heroin. Without legal means to produce the drugs the market demands, these cartelsare not concerned with the quality of their product nor the health of their consumer. When looking at the destruction stemming from the illegal drug trafficking industry, we are able to trace it back to the criminalization of drug commerce and use and yet government officials prefer to live in the dark ages, upping their involvement with the war on yet another drug epidemicentirely manufactured by crony kingpins. This article (US Attorney General Finally Admits Weed Isnt a Gateway Drug Prescription Pills Are)is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commonslicense with attribution to Alice Salles and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org. Well Knock me over with a feather! Yes, .witless, vacant government bureaucrats suddenly animated to thaw the enforced cannabis paranoia.!? Where does this alternate directive originate? The Gov. has patents pending on marijuanasame as the pHARMaceutical giants.Cannabis t IS the wonder cure panacea for the healing of all mankind these slimy reptiles seek to Kontrol it as usualtoo bad for them that its still a weed grows like a weed hahahahaha! Lynch should be fired for her role in the above the rule of law HillBillary server selling state secrets incident. But Hillarys extremely ugly daughter just finished telling kids that people are dying all over from pot! I feel sorry for Chelsea, She gets both her looks and her political insight straight from her parents and I feel even sorrier for her children She could afford some professional grooming tips. Google her images though, and what you will see are her with well done hair and makeup, where she is actually attractive. But many of the photos we see in the media are of her looking just atrocious and it seems willfully unkempt. I dont understand it, condsidering her privilege and wealth. Why she doesent make an effort. I actually am not particularly proud of that comment, as I try not to judge peopleparticularly women by appearances. However, as someone who became politically aware during the Clinton years, I have a somewhat unnatural enmity for that family and their continuous, unethical, if not outright criminal, antics. And the fact that this nimrod who has accomplished nothing by her own merit sees fit to knowingly LIE to young people really annoys me. Im afraid I fell into my own abyss by making it about her homeliness. You display a humanity not typically seenaround these parts, and put in a considerable effort into your posts and positions. To say that you are not proud of a post, or made a mistake or have now a different view, is worth its weight in gold, as it were, here, where decent into insult, and sarcasm is more the order of the day. As they say, a broken clock is right twice a day. But Im working on it. Sweet dreams. Yes, cannabis has been abused to distract from the Bush/CIA cocaine smuggling for too many years. The Reagan-Bush, Iran-Contra drug smuggling has been enlarged to include the poppy fields of Afghanistan, which have been guarded for several years by the U.S. Military. Continuing since the Viet Nam debacle, USAF vehicles and aircraft have been used to smuggle cocaine and heroine products into the U.S. As governor of Arkansas, William Clinton administered the Mena (CIA) airport leg of cocaine smuggling. For details, search on the phrase, what happened at Mena. To acquire a look at the main root of the problem, search the internet on the phrase, George H. W. Bush and pedophilia. A book by former OSS general, Russell S. Bowen, The Immaculate Deception: the Bush Crime Family Exposed also provides an insider view. 