Tucker Carlson got into a heated debate on his self-titled Fox News program on Wednesday with a marijuana advocate who argued that the substance is “objectively safer” than other drugs.
Carlson slammed the idea that marijuana is a harmless substance and brought up Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) research that the drug is linked to schizophrenia, arguing that not enough is known about marijuana yet to declare it safe.
Carlson debates marijuana advocate
Marijuana advocates have long argued that it’s just a harmless plant, but Carlson opened his conversation with guest David Bienenstock by noting that there is still much to be learned about the drug.
“Most of the claims made by [marijuana] proponents are unproven,” Carlson said. “But the CDC does say there is a relationship between marijuana use and rising schizophrenia rates and violence. So why should we legalize something we know causes schizophrenia?”
According to the CDC, marijuana users are “significantly more likely” than non-users to develop temporary psychosis or schizophrenia, and it can cause suicidal thoughts, social anxiety, and depression as well as exacerbate bipolar disorder. It can also damage memory, learning, and attention.
Bienenstock, who is the author of How to Smoke Pot (Properly): A Highbrow Guide to Getting High, responded by asserting the old but unproven claim that marijuana is “objectively safer” than most legal drugs, saying: “Well, I mean the first thing we need to understand is cannabis is objectively safer than many substances that are legal. Alcohol, tobacco, many pharmaceutical drugs.”
Carlson interjected: “Wait. Can we pause for a second? How do we know that it’s safer than alcohol and tobacco? Since I don’t really think we know very much about it. We have been studying nicotine for hundreds of years and alcohol for thousands. We don’t really know that much about them. So why do we say we know that when we don’t really know that?”
Harmless plant?
Bienenstock then pushed the goal posts by saying that marijuana has never killed anyone, but Carlson argued back that the substance kills people indirectly by causing schizophrenia, suicide, and violence.
“We can compare the number of people who die from each substance every year. Hundreds of thousands of people from alcohol and tobacco and zero people from cannabis,” Bienenstock insisted.
“Really? No, that’s not actually true,” Carlson responded. “If weed smoking causes schizophrenia — and there is a suggestion that it does — schizophrenia kills lots of people and so does suicide and so does violence. And if marijuana use hikes rates of violence — and it seems there is a lot of evidence that it does — then that kills people. So the question is not do they die from lung cancer, the question is do they die from suicide or violence?”
Carlson went on: “Those are real questions and you don’t know the answers to them, so why are you saying it’s totally safe when you don’t know that that’s true?”
“I did not say it’s totally safe. That’s a ridiculous standard,” Bienenstock conceded.
Marijuana debate
Carlson and Bienenstock’s exchange comes on the heels of a now-famous monologue Carlson delivered earlier this month in which he attacked the free market system and lamented the “heartbreaking” effects of marijuana on young people.
“Try having dinner with a 19-year-old who’s been smoking weed. The life is gone. Passive, flat, trapped in their own heads,” Carlson said. “Do you want that for your kids? Of course not. Then why are our leaders pushing it on us? You know the reason. Because they don’t care about us.”
In the monologue, Carlson criticized the libertarian laissez-faire mentality when it comes to drugs and other moral issues and said that “tax-hungry politicians” and greed were behind the push to normalize the drug, which was legalized for medicinal use in Missouri and Utah and recreational use in Michigan in the midterm elections.
The left claims to love science all the time when it comes to the climate, so why won’t they wait for the facts on marijuana?
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