Drug Czar Says ‘Young People’ Smoke Pot Because They Saw Grandma Do It When She Was Getting Chemotherapy | Reason

“People keep calling it medicine,” [Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske] said at a press conference [Thursday], “and that’s the wrong message for young people to hear.”

[…] Kerlikowske’s argument suggests that a drug should not be recognized as a medicine if teenagers can use to alter their consciousness. But as the Drug Policy Alliance’s Bill Piper observes, “In the field of medicine, whether or not a youth might abuse something doesn’t determine whether or not an adult should have access to a medication and whether a doctor should prescribe it.” Kerlikowske does not extend his logic to the stimulants, sedatives, tranquilizers, and opioid painkillers that can be legally obtained with a doctor’s prescription. +

Pretty sure watching grandma use marijuana to get through chemo wouldn’t exactly add to the allure of smoking it…