State Senator Donna Campbell had a very interesting exchange with Senator Brian Birdwell on the senate floor to debate HB 3703. But it wasn’t the only thing said on the floor about the bill that stirred up controversy.
During the hearing on the floor, before the discussion with Birdwell, Campbell stated the following:
“A study was done, a post-mortem, so a retrospective study done, looking at autopsies and drug levels, what drugs were in the blood of veterans that committed suicide, and 70 percent had THC,”
When you make a bold enough claim, especially one with numbers attached to it and try to pass it off as fact, it won’t take long for people to fact check it and post the results on a Politifact website.
Hint: ITS PANTS ON FIRE – The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim.
Several groups working in advocacy for cannabis legalization, studies involving PTSD & drug abuse and even doctors assessing suicidal thoughts & drug use could not find evidence that cannabis was the causation factor of what is happening in this situation. Correlation, does not equate to causation when dealing with statistical studies and is a logical fallacy to conclude as such without proper evidence. Even if it was found in 70% of the victim’s bodies that had committed suicide, there is no way to tell if that was the reason why the person committed suicide in the first place.
A study conducted by Safe States Alliance, an injury and violence prevention national nonprofit, in March 2018 used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Violent Death Reporting System to analyze U.S. veteran and armed forces deaths from suicide between the years of 2010 and 2014.
The group’s study found that 9 percent of victims had marijuana in their system. It did not show whether a victim had more than one substance in their system.
It is a good thing that this was fact checked by an outside organization, one that is not vested in the cannabis industry and one that is not a cannabis advocate. It dispels this falsehood that was given on the Senate floor. We all need to work on making sure that the information we give out is truthful in nature as well. The truth is on our side, but we have to be sticking to just that. This is definitely a two way street because it is open communication and if we stick with the absolute truth, we aren’t the ones looking like fools. Don’t forget this when the next legislative session rolls around because truth and history are joining our side in shutting down the naysayers.
Feature image credit: Texas Tribune