Kellyanne Conway claims cannabis is being laced with fentanyl. Here’s why she’s wrong

Kellyanne Conway thinks cannabis is laced with fentanyl.

“People are unwittingly ingesting it,” Conway said during a press conference in a discussion about fentanyl. “It’s laced into heroin, marijuana, meth, cocaine and it’s also just being distributed by itself.”

 

 

The presidential counselor and main player in the Trump administration has it wrong.

While fentanyl has been found in illicit drugs such as cocaine, pills, meth, and heroin, there have been no reports of cannabis laced with the potentially deadly opioid–on either the black or legal markets.

When Conway was confronted about the misinformation, she went on the defence, invoking the words of National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA) director Dr. Nora Volkow, from a speech made last year, in which the research psychiatrist and scientist made claims that “fentanyl is being used to lace a wide variety of drugs, including marijuana.”

The claim is easily debunked, but there have been numerous instances in which the myth was perpetuated.

NIDA refers to an “anecdotal report” from the Vancouver police in 2015 that claimed cannabis users were being killed by smoking fentanyl-laced flower. But the following year, cops admitted that they had, in fact, not found any evidence that this was true.

 

 

Then B.C. Premier Christy Clark also contributed to such misconceptions, backpedaling only when the Vancouver police made the correction.

Another fatal incident in New Haven initially confused K2 or Spice for fentanyl-laced cannabis.

While there have been fatal overdoses in which cannabis was present in the user’s system, the cannabis itself was never a lethal element of the mix of drugs consumed.

A lead chemist at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) stated recently that fentanyl has not been found in any of the cannabis the federal agency has seized, and that the DEA could not confirm any such cases. There have been no alerts released related to cannabis-laced fentanyl.

Conway continues to stick to her story.

Want to keep up to date on what’s happening in the world of cannabis?  Subscribe to the Cannabis Post newsletter for weekly insights into the industry, what insiders will be talking about and content from across the Postmedia Network.