A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent discouraged Utah lawmakers from legalizing medical marijuana, saying that if they did, bunnies might eat it and get too high to do anything but lay around — neglecting the important roles they play in keeping society functioning.
“I deal in facts. I deal in science,” said the agent, Matt Fairbanks, apparently trying to reassure anyone who might for some reason consider his comments ridiculous. Fairbanks is a member of the state’s “marijuana-eradication team.” The Washington Post reported that Fairbanks made the comments in front of a state-senate panel last week.
Fairbanks claimed he had seen the devastating effects of marijuana on the bunny community when he visited some illegal marijuana sites where the rabbits “had cultivated a taste for the marijuana.” He told the alarming tale of one bunny in particular: “One of them refused to leave us, and we took all the marijuana around him, but his natural instincts to run were somehow gone,” he said.
How Fairbanks could possibly consider the fact that one rabbit didn’t run away from him one time to be something that should influence state policy is not clear.
— Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review Online.