Chelsea Clinton, whose father famously admitted to firing up a joint or two in college (but not inhaling), told a group of college students in Ohio over the weekend that marijuana is literally killing people in Colorado.
In remarks to a group at Youngstown State University first reported by marijuana.com, Chelsea—potentially America’s first daughter for a second time—said her mother supports states’ right to make their own laws vis-a-vis medical and recreational marijuana use but prefers that the drug be regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.
Chelsea said there was anecdotal evidence that marijuana may be useful in the treatment of epilepsy or relieving the suffering of people going through chemotherapy, but “we also have anecdotal evidence now from Colorado where some of the people who were taking marijuana for those purposes, the coroner believes, after they died, there was drug interactions with other things they were taking.”
While federal officials have documented an increase in the number of marijuana-related traffic fatalities in Colorado since the drug was legalized for recreational use in 2014, there have been no reports of deaths arising from marijuana’s interaction with other drugs. Marijuana.com’s attempt to get clarification from the Hillary Clinton campaign about her daughter’s remarks went unanswered.
Chelsea told the students that her mother absolutely supports the medical use of marijuana, and implied that the candidate would prefer any therapeutic use be allowed only after it has been vetted by the FDA.
“We just need so much more data than we have so that people who might benefit have the chance to benefit, people who might be in danger are protected,” she said. “So absolutely my mom strongly supports the need for more rigorous study and then subjecting it, as we do kind of everything else that might have a medicinal purpose, to FDA approval, scrutiny and ultimately regulation.”