Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, host of The Ingraham Angle, suggested in a recent televised segment that the rising use and cultural acceptance of cannabis is an attributing factor to the trend of mass shootings in the U.S., Media Matters reports.
In a segment titled “The Unintended Consequences of Normalizing Pot,” the conservative television host honed in on the use of cannabis by the teenager who murdered 21 people last week — including 19 elementary school students and two teachers — in Uvalde, Texas.
In her segment, Ingraham highlights a report by the New York Times that had originally stated the school shooter had been a cannabis consumer. But the reference to cannabis was later pulled from online editions of the article, and Ingraham suggests the Times’ back-pedaling of that information could be due to a powerful “pro-marijuana bias” meant to protect the nascent, multi-billion-dollar cannabis industry.
“The American people are hearing a lot about AR-15’s and background checks, but they also deserve to hear about this as well. Respected medical studies for years now have demonstrated that pot use, especially among teens, can trigger psychosis and increase the chance that the young person will develop violent behaviors.” — Laura Ingraham, Fox News
Ingraham and her guest go on to discuss research findings that high-potency cannabis products can carry an increased chance of psychosis for some consumers, and suggest that more public education and awareness about the issue is warranted.
Ultimately, Ingraham fails to note that the modern mass shooting crisis — often characterized as beginning with the 1966 massacre at the University of Texas — outdates the modern cannabis legalization movement by nearly five decades.
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