In a leaked audio recording of Donald Trump that surfaced last week, the President claimed that weed was making its users dumber. "In Colorado they have more accidents," Trump said in the audio, which was obtained by Rudolph Guiliani associate Lev Parnas. "It does cause an IQ problem," he added.
The lengthy audio clip, which most notably made headlines for Trump calling for the firing of Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, saw Trump debate whether the legalization of marijuana is "a good thing or a bad thing." In the leaked conversation, Trump said "you lose IQ points" for using the drug. Donald Trump Jr., however, disagreed with his father. "Between that and alcohol, as far as I'm concerned, alcohol does much more damage."
The debate between the two started after Parnas suggested that legal marijuana is "the future, no matter how you look at it." Additionally, Parnas said that Trump could establish a "presidential committe on cannabis." Another unidentified person in the recording took Trump Jr.'s side, and added weed is a "better alternative" to opioid painkillers. "It's so far out you're not going to stop it," Parnas said.
The recording is allegedly from just before the 2018 Congressional midterms. Trump has claimed previously that he doesn't think he's "ever spoken to" Parnas, while this recording shows otherwise. The President's insistance that the legalization of recreational marijuana has resulted in more "accidents" has been disputed in a study from the American Journal of Public Health, which claimed that "changes in motor vehicle crash fatality rates for Washington and Colorado were not statistically different from those in similiar states without recreational marijuana legalization."
