NEWS
Jeff Sessions Bashes Hollywood’s Portrayal of Drug Use
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He didn’t give any specific examples, but the Attorney General did compare the entertainment industry to “a rattlesnake in your bed.”
Published on August 30, 2017

The nation’s top cop is at it again. During a meeting of the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children in Green Bay, Wisconsin this week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions lashed out at Hollywood, the media and his peers in politics for their “accommodating messages” about drugs. 

According to the Washington Examiner, Sessions warned police and parents alike to not “capitulate intellectually or morally to drug use.”

"In recent years, some of the government officials, media, and Hollywood elites in this country have sent mixed messages and accommodating messages about the harmfulness of drugs," Sessions said, before calling that sentiment "unacceptable."

Sessions didn’t name drop any TV shows or movies, but he did try and correlate the perceived media pushers to America’s climbing opioid overdose rate, noting the record high 60,000 drug-induced deaths last year in the very same speech.

"We must create and foster a culture that is hostile to drug abuse. Accommodation to a rattlesnake in your bed is a path to disaster," Sessions said, apparently comparing television shows like Amazon’s Budding Prospects or FX’s Snowfall to inviting a venomous reptile under your duvet cover.

And while the Attorney General soon reverted back to his tried and true talking points about increasing law enforcement efforts and locking up more drug users for longer periods of time, he failed to mention the perfectly legal drug companies and doctors that continue to prescribe the same deadly opioids that are leading to, or themselves causing increased addiction and overdoses.

Instead, Sessions lauded the Department of Justice’s new data analytics program aimed at cutting down on pharmaceutical-related fraud, another tactic that will lead to increased incarceration. 

"I believe that these new resources and new efforts will make a difference, bring more criminals to justice, and ultimately save lives. And I'm convinced this is a winnable war."

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Zach Harris
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Zach Harris is a writer based in Philadelphia whose work has appeared on Noisey, First We Feast, and Jenkem Magazine. You can find him on Twitter @10000youtubes complaining about NBA referees.
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