When a federal company tasked with defending Individuals from harmful medicine begins claiming that hashish causes extra psychosis than methamphetamine—and not using a shred of scientific proof—it is time to ask some uncomfortable questions. Both the Drug Enforcement Administration employs individuals who failed primary biology, or they’re intentionally spreading misinformation to serve pursuits that don’t have anything to do with public security.
The newest embarrassment from the DEA’s “Simply Assume Twice” marketing campaign can be hilarious if it weren’t so harmful. They’re actually evaluating a plant that is by no means killed anybody to an artificial stimulant that destroys brains, rots enamel, and turns customers into violent zombies. However in accordance with the DEA’s crack staff of “specialists,” hashish is the actual risk as a result of some psychiatrist in Oregon made an offhand remark with out citing any comparative research.
In the meantime, this identical company has spent seven years blocking MMJ BioPharma—an organization with FDA approval, DEA safety clearance, and each regulatory field checked—from conducting professional pharmaceutical analysis into cannabis-based medicines. Let that contradiction sink in: the DEA concurrently claims hashish is simply too harmful to review whereas spreading propaganda that makes it sound extra harmful than methamphetamine.
This is not incompetence—it is corruption. The DEA has advanced from Harry Anslinger’s racist prohibition enforcement squad into Large Pharma’s personal navy contractor, utilizing badges and federal authority to guard pharmaceutical monopolies whereas spreading fear-based fiction about pure options.
As MMJ BioPharma CEO Duane Boise famous, we’re witnessing “a clown present” the place supposed drug specialists evaluate hashish to methamphetamine “with no scientific foundation” whereas distributing memes about sperm counts and inspiring youngsters to chase Instagram fame as a substitute of utilizing hashish. This is not a severe company—it is a propaganda operation masquerading as regulation enforcement.
The DEA’s newest declare that hashish causes extra psychosis than methamphetamine represents such a spectacular departure from actuality that it deserves its personal class within the annals of presidency misinformation. Let’s study what precise science tells us about these substances.
Methamphetamine is an artificial stimulant that actually destroys mind tissue. Lengthy-term meth use causes irreversible harm to dopamine receptors, resulting in cognitive impairment, reminiscence loss, and extreme psychiatric signs together with paranoid psychosis. The drug creates hyperthermia that may trigger organ failure, triggers violent habits, and produces bodily deterioration so extreme that “meth mouth” and “meth face” have grow to be acknowledged medical situations.
Hashish, against this, has been used medicinally for hundreds of years and has by no means been conclusively linked to everlasting mind harm. Whereas heavy hashish use can set off non permanent psychotic episodes in predisposed people, these episodes usually resolve when use stops, and the hyperlink stays controversial amongst researchers.
The DEA’s declare comes from a cherry-picked quote by Oregon psychiatrist David Rettew, who allegedly stated marijuana “raises the danger of psychotic issues greater than different medicine, even methamphetamines.” Discover what’s lacking? Any scientific research, peer-reviewed information, or rigorous comparative evaluation. Simply an offhand opinion that the DEA reworked into official coverage steering.
That is how the DEA operates: they discover one particular person prepared to make an outrageous declare, strip away all context and caveats, then current it as settled science. It is the identical tactic tobacco corporations used to seek out the one scientist prepared to say cigarettes have been secure, besides now it is a federal company doing it.
However the methamphetamine comparability is not simply scientifically absurd—it is strategically crafted misinformation. By evaluating hashish to one of the harmful medicine identified to humanity, the DEA creates a false equivalency that justifies continued prohibition whereas ignoring mountains of proof about hashish’s relative security.
The company’s “Simply Assume Twice” marketing campaign additionally contains different mental gems like encouraging youngsters to pursue “pure highs” from pet shops and Instagram followers as a substitute of utilizing hashish. As a result of apparently, the DEA believes social media habit is more healthy than occasional hashish use. That is the standard of considering we get from a $3 billion annual price range.
In the meantime, the identical company that claims hashish is extra harmful than methamphetamine has spent seven years blocking professional pharmaceutical analysis into cannabis-based medicines. MMJ BioPharma has FDA approval for investigating hashish therapies for Huntington’s Illness and A number of Sclerosis—devastating neurological situations that at present have restricted therapy choices. But the DEA refuses to difficulty the manufacturing license that might enable this analysis to proceed.
The contradiction is beautiful: if hashish is as harmful because the DEA claims, should not they welcome rigorous scientific research to show their level? As a substitute, they block analysis whereas spreading memes about sperm counts and psychosis charges that contradict accessible proof.
This sample reveals the DEA’s true perform: not defending Individuals from harmful medicine, however defending pharmaceutical corporations from pure competitors.
The DEA’s present circus act makes excellent sense once you perceive the company’s origins and evolution. This is not a corporation that instantly misplaced its method—it is fulfilling its historic mission of defending highly effective pursuits by prohibition enforcement.
The DEA traces its lineage to Harry Anslinger’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics, established in 1930. Anslinger, a racist bureaucrat who wanted to justify his division’s existence after alcohol prohibition ended, launched the primary federal marijuana prohibition marketing campaign utilizing techniques that might make Joseph Goebbels proud.
Anslinger’s propaganda featured lurid tales about “reefer insanity” inflicting violence, madness, and ethical decay. He testified earlier than Congress that hashish made customers “neglect the distinction between proper and incorrect” and claimed it induced white girls to hunt sexual relations with black males—revealing the racist motivations underlying prohibition.
The trendy DEA, created in 1973 underneath Richard Nixon, inherited this propaganda custom whereas including a brand new mission: defending the pharmaceutical monopoly Nixon created by the Managed Substances Act. Nixon’s home coverage chief John Ehrlichman later admitted that drug prohibition was designed to criminalize political enemies, not defend public well being.
However the CSA achieved one thing extra insidious than political persecution—it handed pharmaceutical corporations authorized monopoly energy over drug manufacturing, distribution, and analysis. By requiring DEA approval for managed substance analysis and manufacturing, the regulation ensured that solely pharmaceutical corporations might entry essentially the most therapeutically fascinating compounds.
Hashish prohibition grew to become the cornerstone of this method as a result of hashish threatens a number of pharmaceutical income streams concurrently. The plant’s compounds can deal with ache, irritation, seizures, nausea, anxiousness, melancholy, and quite a few different situations at present dominated by costly patented drugs.
As pharmaceutical corporations gained extra affect over medical schooling, analysis funding, and regulatory companies, the DEA advanced from a regulation enforcement company into Large Pharma’s personal enforcement arm. Their mission shifted from stopping drug abuse to stopping competitors with pharmaceutical merchandise.
This explains why the DEA treats hashish and methamphetamine—substances with utterly completely different danger profiles—as equal threats. It is not about precise hazard; it is about defending pharmaceutical market share from pure competitors.
The company’s present management continues this custom of serving company somewhat than public pursuits. Regardless of overwhelming proof of hashish’s medical advantages and comparatively low dangers, DEA officers proceed parroting speaking factors that would have been written by pharmaceutical lobbyists.
Whereas the DEA spreads concern about hashish psychosis dangers, they’ve remained remarkably silent about precise pharmaceutical scandals which have killed lots of of hundreds of Individuals. This selective outrage reveals every part you have to know in regards to the company’s true priorities.
Contemplate the opioid epidemic, which has claimed over 500,000 American lives since 1999. Pharmaceutical corporations like Purdue Pharma intentionally misled docs and sufferers about opioid habit dangers, creating the deadliest drug disaster in American historical past. The DEA’s response? Minimal enforcement and token fines that represented a tiny fraction of business income.
OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma paid $8.3 billion in settlements—sounds spectacular till you notice the corporate generated over $30 billion in OxyContin income. That is not a penalty; it is a value of doing enterprise. In the meantime, folks caught with small quantities of hashish face years in federal jail.
Johnson & Johnson supplies one other instructive instance. The corporate knew for many years that their child powder contained asbestos linked to most cancers, but continued advertising it to households. They’ve paid billions in settlements for inflicting ovarian most cancers and mesothelioma in customers who trusted their merchandise. The place was the DEA’s concern about defending public well being from these precise risks?
The pharmaceutical business has paid over $100 billion in legal and civil penalties since 2000 for numerous types of fraud, but the DEA continues treating them as reliable companions whereas demonizing hashish researchers and medical sufferers.
Vioxx, manufactured by Merck, killed an estimated 60,000 folks by elevated coronary heart assault and stroke dangers earlier than being withdrawn from the market. The corporate knew about these dangers however hid them from regulators and sufferers. The DEA’s response? Crickets.
Antidepressants like Paxil have been marketed to youngsters regardless of scientific trial information exhibiting elevated suicide dangers in younger sufferers. The FDA ultimately required black field warnings, however solely after hundreds of younger folks had been unnecessarily endangered. Once more, the DEA confirmed little interest in defending public well being from these documented pharmaceutical risks.
This sample extends throughout the pharmaceutical business: Risperdal inflicting breast progress in boys, Abilify inflicting compulsive playing, Chantix inflicting psychiatric episodes, diabetes drugs inflicting flesh-eating infections. Every scandal entails pharmaceutical corporations hiding identified dangers whereas advertising harmful merchandise to susceptible populations.
But the identical company that ignores these documented pharmaceutical risks claims that hashish—which has by no means induced a deadly overdose—poses such a risk that even FDA-approved medical analysis have to be blocked.
The message is obvious: if you happen to’re a pharmaceutical firm inflicting precise hurt with artificial chemical compounds, the DEA will look the opposite method and perhaps fantastic you a small proportion of your income. However if you happen to’re researching pure options which may cut back pharmaceutical dependence, they’re going to destroy your corporation with regulatory obstruction.
The DEA’s declare that hashish causes extra psychosis than methamphetamine represents the ultimate collapse of no matter credibility this company as soon as possessed. When federal drug “specialists” begin evaluating therapeutic vegetation to brain-destroying artificial chemical compounds, it is time to admit that the DEA has grow to be a public well being menace somewhat than a protecting company.
However this newest embarrassment is not an remoted incident—it is the logical endpoint of an company that was all the time designed to serve highly effective pursuits somewhat than defend public welfare. From Harry Anslinger’s racist propaganda to right this moment’s pharmaceutical protectionism, the DEA has persistently prioritized prohibition ideology over scientific proof.
The company’s seven-year obstruction of MMJ BioPharma—an organization with FDA approval and full regulatory compliance—whereas spreading memes about hashish sperm results reveals their true perform. They are not drug enforcement officers; they’re pharmaceutical business enforcers utilizing federal authority to remove competitors from pure medicines.
In the meantime, the identical company that blocks hashish analysis ignores precise pharmaceutical scandals which have killed lots of of hundreds of Individuals. When Purdue Pharma created the opioid epidemic, the DEA’s response was minimal. When Johnson & Johnson hid cancer-causing asbestos in child powder, the DEA remained silent. However when researchers need to research hashish for treating neurological ailments, instantly the DEA turns into involved about public security.
This selective enforcement exposes the company’s core corruption: they defend pharmaceutical corporations that trigger documented hurt whereas attacking pure options that threaten business income. The DEA is not preventing a struggle on medicine—they’re preventing a struggle on pharmaceutical competitors.
Incoming DEA Administrator Terrance Cole faces a selection: proceed this failed trajectory of propaganda and pharmaceutical protectionism, or acknowledge that the company has misplaced all credibility and desires elementary reform. Given his historical past of anti-cannabis statements, significant change appears unlikely with out exterior stress.
The answer is not simply issuing MMJ BioPharma’s long-overdue license, although that might be a begin. The basic drawback is an company whose mission contradicts scientific proof and public well being pursuits. The DEA was created to implement prohibition insurance policies based mostly on racism and company protectionism, and it continues serving these pursuits right this moment.
Individuals deserve drug enforcement that is based mostly on proof somewhat than pharmaceutical business speaking factors. We want companies that defend public well being from precise risks somewhat than defending company income from pure competitors. We want regulators who consider substances based mostly on their precise dangers and advantages somewhat than their risk to pharmaceutical market share.
Till the DEA undergoes elementary reform—or higher but, substitute with science-based public well being companies—we’ll proceed seeing the identical sample: hashish researchers blocked whereas pharmaceutical corporations obtain free passes for inflicting documented hurt.
The DEA’s methamphetamine-cannabis comparability is not simply scientifically absurd—it is an ideal metaphor for an company that has misplaced all connection to actuality in service of company masters. When federal drug “specialists” cannot inform the distinction between therapeutic vegetation and mind poison, it is time to discover new specialists.
The clown present has gone on lengthy sufficient. Individuals deserve higher than pharmaceutical business enforcers masquerading as public well being protectors.
DEA’S HYPOCRISY EXPOSED, READ ON…
