Drug Czar Sinks Even Lower

Regarding last night’s post about how the drug czar’s office used the suicide death of a 15-year-old to imply the relationship between marijuana and suicide — despite the fact that the teenager had tested negative for pot four times and only had alcohol in his blood at the time of the suicide…
The Marijuana Policy Project called them on it, and in this article in the Rocky Mountain News, the parents and ONDCP go nuclear.
The grieving, but seriously delusional, father said:

“You can tell those dumb b——- up there I buried my 15-year-old son because of marijuana, and that’s how I feel,” Ernest Skaggs said. “Ain’t no one using me at all.”

That’s fine. You’re welcome to feel that way. But once you decide to take your son’s story public and do interviews, don’t get bent out of shape when someone calls you on clear contradictions.
And then came the really offensive:

ONDCP spokeswoman Jennifer de Vallance said she was outraged by the group’s attacks.

“Mr. and Mrs. Skaggs have demonstrated tremendous courage and really are doing a public service to tell their very painful story in the hopes that other families and other parents won’t go through the same thing,” de Vallance said.

“It truly is despicable to belittle their very courageous and important contribution to this public health effort,” de Vallance said.

Using someone’s death as an excuse to lie, and then trying to shift that onto the one who points it out — that’s despicable.
Update: In comments over at Hit and Run, Independent Worm brings out the sarcasm:

Well, there ya go. Victims are always right, after all. Suffering a tragedy bestows infallibility upon the victim — a kind of karmic reward for having lost something.

Which is why it makes so much sense to base law and policy on the hysterical ravings of angry, freaked-out victims. They and they alone possess the clarity of thought and the kind of wise, sober, carefully crafted ideas that make for good policy.