I typed in all caps there because for the umpteenth time, after we’ve been over this time and again, someone has taken a piece from the satirical website and trumpeted it as the truth, and this time it was a police chief in Maryland citing information from a Daily Currant article to argue why legalizing marijuana is dangerous.
This is the same site responsible for hoax stories about Rob Ford, Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, and plenty of other people. But Annapolis Police Chief Michael Pristoop used numbers that originated from the Daily Currant to make this point.
“The first day of legalization, that’s when Colorado experienced 37 deaths that day from overdose on marijuana,” Pristoop testified at Tuesday’s Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee hearing. “I remember the first day it was decriminalized there were 37 deaths.”
That number came from this Daily Currant story: “Marijuana Overdoses Kill 37 in Colorado on First Day of Legalization”; the joke there being no one dies from a pot overdose. Pristoop
Chief Pristoop, after conducting additional research, discovered that the numbers presented were not accurate but an urban myth. “I apologize for the information I provided concerning the deaths. I believed the information I obtained was accurate but I now know the story is nothing more than an urban legend,” Chief Michael Pristoop stated. “This does not take away from the other facts presented in opposition to legalization or the good work of the Maryland Chiefs and Maryland Sheriffs Associations.”
Yes, the fact that the head of a police department cited fake statistics from a parody website does not undermine the credibility of the entire statement one iota.
[h/t US News]
[photo via screenrab]
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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac