An official in the Trump administration’s White House drug office claims that “the number one drug of addiction is marijuana”—arguing that it is important to “remember the victims of marijuana, the people who’ve died from marijuana harms.”
Roneet Lev, who serves as the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s (ONDCP) chief medical officer, made the comments on the Drug Free America Foundation’s Pathways to Prevention podcast last month.
The Trump administration drug official said that she surrounds herself with pictures of people who have “tragically died” as a result of drugs, saying she “doesn’t want them to die in vain” and uses their stories as a way to remind herself of the importance of ONDCP’s work.
“At first it was the parents who’ve lost children from the oxycodone and pain medicine epidemic and then fentanyl,” Lev said. “And we also remember the victims of marijuana, the people who’ve died from marijuana harms as well—or any drug. It doesn’t matter what drug. These are all potentially preventable deaths.”
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), however, says that “no deaths from overdose of marijuana have been reported”—though the ONDCP medical official may have been referencing people who died as a result
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