JD Vance Pushes Debunked Claim Of Fentanyl-Laced Marijuana Despite New Harvard-Led Study Findings

A new federally funded study has found no evidence to support claims that illicit marijuana is being widely laced with fentanyl, despite recent and persistent assertions to the contrary made by former President Donald Trump‘s running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH).

The study, published in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas, analyzed nearly 12 million samples of nine illicit drugs, including cannabis, from 2013 to 2023 to determine the prevalence of fentanyl contamination. They identified fentanyl in fewer than two percent of the samples tested.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School, Brown University and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that of the nine drugs studied, marijuana was the least likely to contain fentanyl.

“Our results show no evidence of widespread fentanyl co-occurrence with cannabis,” researchers concluded.

Nevertheless, Vance Persists

Despite the study’s finding and a similar report that the DEA has not issued any alerts about fentanyl in marijuana, Vance has continued to connect the deadly opioid to the Biden-Harris administration by repeating what some might view as questionable anecdotes. The subject came up in a Tuesday interview on the Daily Dot with Theo Von in which Vance talked about the “explosion of drug trafficking at the southern border” and how “you hear about it… someone smokes a joint, it’s laced with fentanyl, they go into a coma.”

In a campaign tour across Arizona in September, Vance told a gathering that VP Kamala  Harris was allowing Mexican drug cartels to sex traffic children. “We have American citizens right now who are dying of fentanyl overdoses that the Mexican cartels brought into our communities,” Vance said. “We have thousands of missing children because Kamala Harris has left the cartels sex traffic minors in our own country.”

Vance has repeatedly blasted Harris for fomenting chaos through lax border policies and for “the poison [she] has let come into this country.”

Read Also: JD Vance Says There’s Fentanyl In Marijuana ‘Teenagers Are Using,’ Trump Running Mate Raises Eyebrows

Here’s An Idea

Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), which first published the research results, welcomed the study’s conclusions but stressed the importance of ensuring marijuana sold on the unregulated market is of consistent quality.

"This study's failure to identify cannabis as a significant risk factor for inadvertent fentanyl exposure is reassuring," Armentano wrote. "That said, concerns that marijuana sold on the unregulated market may be of variable quality and purity are valid. However, the best way to address these concerns is by taking cannabis products off street corners and placing them behind the counters of licensed businesses, where they are lab tested and labeled accordingly."

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