British Prime Minister Claims Marijuana Can Kill You

As British PM Gordon Browne prepares to ignore the recommendation of his own Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and increase penalties for marijuana, he reveals once again how little he actually knows about the subject:

"I don't think that the previous studies took into account that so much of the cannabis on the streets is now of a lethal quality and we really have got to send out a message to young people -- this is not acceptable," Brown said. [Reuters]

Any way you look at it, this is just a total lie. The word "lethal" as defined by dictionary.com means the following:

–adjective
1. of, pertaining to, or causing death; deadly; fatal: a lethal weapon; a lethal dose.
2. made to cause death: a lethal chamber; a lethal attack.
3. causing great harm or destruction: The disclosures were lethal to his candidacy.

Even the 3rd definition, which may be the one Browne intends, is essentially figurative and is only used to describe non-living things, in this case a political campaign. The word is derived from the latin letalis, meaning death. It's just an incredibly poor adjective to describe a substance that has never killed anyone in human history. He says he wants to "send out a message to young people," but his message is just a big lie.

Thus, Browne is now expected to move forward with a plan to upgrade the criminal status of marijuana based on his own ignorant and wrong understanding of what the drug does, while disregarding the contrary advice of a whole council of experts who might actually know something about this.

This, my friends, is precisely how bad public policy gets made.