Marijuana and Illness:
In this video, Fox News mentions that the federal government believes that "something inside of marijuana has the potential to promote cancer."
After fact-checking this claim, we were able to unveil the truthiness. The Cancer Causes and Control journal published by Springer Netherlands concluded that marijuana use and cancer were not associated in their overall analyses. According to the American Cancer Society, "One review of studies published between 1975 and 1996 concluded that THC taken by mouth worked as well or better than older prescription drugs for reducing nausea associated with chemotherapy."
In this video Jon Stewart discusses that marijuana can help with many different illnesses. Instead of voicing his own opinions about marijuana he acknowledges that there are those who agree that it can help and those who disagree.
Truth:
He uses satire throughout the program but there is no sign of truthiness we were able to find within this clip.
Marijuana and Driving:
Fox News has a few interesting opinions when it comes to driving and marijuana use. They mention that police officers have no way of proving that someone is high after pulling them over because they cannot take a blood test on the side of the road without a warrant.
Some Truth ... Some Truthiness:
Although it is true that police officers cannot demand a blood test on the side of the road and must take the driver down town in order to test his THC levels, Fox News neglects to acknowledge Senate Bill5 which states that blood tests may be administered within two hours of operating a vehicle. This will test to see if marijuana was in the driver's system while they were at the wheel. This is a perfect example of the gatekeeping theory. Fox is controlling which information they would like the public to know and leaving out other pertinent facts.
Although it is true that police officers cannot demand a blood test on the side of the road and must take the driver down town in order to test his THC levels, Fox News neglects to acknowledge Senate Bill5 which states that blood tests may be administered within two hours of operating a vehicle. This will test to see if marijuana was in the driver's system while they were at the wheel. This is a perfect example of the gatekeeping theory. Fox is controlling which information they would like the public to know and leaving out other pertinent facts.
Fox also made the claim that drivers under the influence of marijuana do not drive recklessly, they just drive at a much slower pace than usual.
After doing a bit of research and fact-checking our team concluded that this statement is pure truthiness. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, legal and illegal drugs are impairing 16.3 percent of nighttime drivers nationwide. And according to the LA Times, half of those using marijuana or driving under the influence of marijuana have severely impaired judgement, creating a very dangerous situation for the driver and anyone near the car.
The NHTSA isn't the only one to point out drivers can be reckless while under the influence of marijuana...
According to a cross-sectional survey within BMC public health, "there is evidence of dose-dependent impairments in marijuana-affected individuals’ ability to control a vehicle in the areas of steering, headway control, speed variability, car following, reaction time and lane positioning."
In this video Fox correspondents begin questioning what we will tell our children about marijuana and questioning what will stop someone from getting "potted up" behind the wheel.
Truthiness:
The answer we came up with is: nothing. Nothing stopped people from driving while under the influence of marijuana before. This is a perfect example of Fox using their opinions in order to make their viewers form similar judgments.
In the beginning of the clip below the reporter states that more drivers are "tokeing" up. They talk about a canadian study that says driving within 2 hours of smoking makes you twice as likely to cause a fatal crash.
Truthiness:
According to Barbara Harsha, the executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, there is "strong evidence that, regardless of the comparative data on substances in drivers' systems, 'drunk driving is still the bigger problem.' Alcohol-related crashes were 32 percent of the total in 2008. There’s no comparable data for drug-related crashes, but the estimates are in the 10 percent to 15 percent range."
Marijuana and Incarceration:
In this clip from The Daily Show, Jon Stewart highlights the fact that nearly half of
American teenagers have smoked pot.
Both Stewart and Steven Colbert argue in these clips that the incarceration rate “disproportionally hurts people of color.”
Truth:
Nearly half of American teenagers smoking pot sounded like a huge exaggeration so we, as a team, decided to check the facts. According to a national study on teen “heavy” marijuana usage, the lifetime use is up 21 percent. If you do the math, this number went from 39% in 2008 to 47% in 2011. Jon Stewart used complete truth in this statement, after all 47% is nearly 50%.
But we didn't stop fact-checking there.
We wanted to make sure Mr. Stewart and Mr. Colbert were giving factual information concerning the incarceration rates of people of color. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, “Arrests
for possession of small amounts of marijuana constitute one of the most common
drug-related points of entry into the criminal justice system, and are often
directed primarily at people of color, despite strong evidence that whites use
marijuana at higher rates.” We were unable to debunk any truthiness from this segment of The Daily Show.
Marijuana and Voters:
In this clip, Steven Colbert talks about how democrats hope putting marijuana on the ballot will boost participation and will be a swing vote in their favor. He uses satire to joke about how pot smokers are the kind of "motivated" people you can count on.
Truth:
After doing a bit of research, our team found that in Colorado, the votes for the legalization of marijuana were more popular than both President Obama or Mitt Romney. About 1,307,288 people in Colorado voted to legalize marijuana. By comparison, only 1,252,269 people in the state voted for Barack Obama and just 1,135,165 voted for Mitt Romney. There may be correlation but there is no causation.
What does Portugal think?
In this video Ethan Nadelmann, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, is interviewed about the decriminalization of drugs. He describes Portugal's techniques and is continually interrupted by the reporter who essentially questions why we would want to do what Portugal is doing.
We decided this video was truthiness because the reporter refused to accept the facts and kept cutting off Mr. Nadelmann when he was speaking to throw in her opinion. Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001 in an attempt to decrease the number of deaths and cases of HIV related to drug abuse. According to a report released by the Cato Institute, five years after the decriminalization the number of deaths from drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290. The number of new HIV cases due to people using dirty needles to inject illegal substances dropped from 1,400 in the year 2000 to 400 in 2006. Tell us again why we wouldn't want to be like Portugal?
No One Can Take this Seriously:
In this clip from The Daily Show, Jon Stewart is using satire to emphasize the fact that reporters have a hard time taking this concept seriously. They are too busy making jokes to actually report anything relevant.