HUD Secretary Ben Carson Spreads Marijuana Myths

Speaking to the Native American Housing Association this week, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson strayed into the marijuana reform debate. Unfortunately, he has no grasp of the facts—not even a little.

Before he wandered off, Carson suggested that the federal government should take a “holistic” approach to housing in Indian Country and ensure that “low- and middle-income Native American families can enjoy comfortable housing just like everyone else.”

In his remarks about economic growth, Carson heaped praise on Trump for having added more than one million jobs since he landed in the White House.

However, this fact is absolutely untrue.

According to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, only half a million jobs have been created in the past six months.

But then, he stepped right into it.

The former neurosurgeon and 2016 Republican primary candidate for president went on to explain how he thinks that marijuana use is just as problematic as opiate abuse.

“As a doctor, few things break my heart more than to hear of families torn down and torn apart by substances which damage bodies and minds,” Carson said, according to the Flathead Beacon. “I’m not all that enthusiastic about marijuana because there have been numerous studies that show exposing a developing brain to marijuana can lead to lower IQs.”

Ah, no. There have not been. In fact, there have been numerous studies that confirm just the opposite.

“Further, as to Secretary Carson’s remarks in the context of the nation’s opioid epidemic,” reads NORML’s blog on Carson’s comments, “it is important to note that medical marijuana access is associated with reduced rates of opioid use and abuse, opioid-related hospitalizations, opioid-related traffic fatalities and opioid-related overdose deaths.”

Thanks, NORML, but that might be way too much information for Carson, who obviously used up his allotment of grey matter when he practiced as a pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

How is it possible, you ask, to be a brain surgeon and to say things like Obamacare was worse than slavery and that Joseph (father of Jesus) built the pyramids to store grain? And those are just a few of the good doctor’s controversial word-vomit gems.

“We already have enough people with a low IQ, and we don’t need anymore,” said Carson.

You got that right, doctor.