Titled “US relationship therapist Dr Laura Berman reveals son, 16, experimented with cannabis before overdose death” and published on the 7News website on February 24th, the article is a clear example of anti-cannabis propaganda.
The author, Rachel Paula Abrahamson, uses the tragic overdose death of The Dr. Oz Show host’s son, to push the common myth that cannabis is the assured gateway drug so many have claimed it to be. Which has been proven time and time again to be false.
Despite the evidence, the word ‘cannabis’ still managed to find its way into the headline.
The story made its way into publications again as in Tuesday’s episode of The Dr. Oz show, the host Dr Laura Berman recalled that her son had been experimenting with cannabis before the overdose.
Berman went on to explain how she handled the situtation.
Obviously we came down very firmly, we had a zero-tolerance. We even got him a drug counsellor that he met with. There was also a therapist that he met with once a week.
While no parent should have to endure the death of their child, instead of taking on the role of a parent and educating her son about the various drugs, their effects, and how they work, she took the classic prohibitionist approach and handed the problem off to others.
As we now know, the problem only got worse. Berman announced on February 7th that her son had overdosed on fentanyl-laced Xanax after purchasing it from a drug dealer on Snapchat. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 times more potent than heroin.
Devastating, to say the least. But we can all learn an important lesson here. Denying your child a proper education on all the aspects of life, including the common types of drugs available for use, can do more harm than good.
7News should be ashamed of themselves for using the death of a child to promote anti-cannabis propaganda.