In the past week, there was an op-ed posted pertaining to the legalization of recreational marijuana. The article, written by Patrick Kennedy and Kevin Sabet, argues that the leaders of the marijuana legalization movement are attempting to create a conglomerate, in order to push legalization for profit. Though the opinion of Kennedy and Sabet is not unfounded, their article is full of conjecture and bias that leaves much to be desired.

My initial issue with the article is that Kennedy and Sabet consistently make statements, such as, “Many marijuana advocates have one goal in mind: to get rich.” These statements are highly inflammatory, yet have no substance to them. There is no actual link or statement within the article that points towards any group of people pushing marijuana solely for profit. To compensate for this obvious absence, Kennedy and Sabet use phrases, like “Big Marijuana,” to put fear in their readers.

In addition to their lack of evidence, many of Kennedy and Sabet’s links within the article are from clearly biased sources that have a political agenda to achieve. In fact, one of their sources was nearly two years old and came from a website titled Marijuana Harmless Think Again.

I would agree that the information surrounding marijuana safety is unclear at the moment; however, articles, such as this one, only lead to fear-mongering and negativity.

-Dylan San Roman