U.S. Attorney General says pot is not a gateway drug, prescription opioids are

Speaking at a Kentucky high school in September, 2016, U.S. Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, iterated to the kids that marijuana is not the gateway drug it has been made out to be.

She, instead, went on to blame prescription drugs as the main introduction to opioids in modern society.  These, she says, are the main factor of things leading young people to harder drugs like heroin.

“In so many cases, it isn’t trafficking rings that introduce a person to opioids,” she said. “It’s the household medicine cabinet. Something you can have prescribed to you in good faith by a doctor. That’s the source.

“It isn’t so much that marijuana is the step right before using prescription drugs or opioids," she continued.  "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 it’s not like we’re seeing that marijuana as a specific gateway."

The announcement by the Attorney General that pot is not a gateway drug breathes new life into the legalization movement that is sweeping around the country.  The feds have already backed off of state rights regarding the matter and now, high profile members of the administration are acknowledging that the dangers of pot have been overstated.

Overdose deaths in the US have increased 137 percent between 2000 and 2014.  We no longer have the luxury of ignorantly blaming the hemp plant; we seriously have to investigate the medical industry's profit-pushing method of delivering hard pills to people on a whim.