In what could be one of the most ignorant statements ever made, a lawmaker is saying that black people cannot handle marijuana due to their genetics.
Kansas lawmaker, state Rep. Steve Alford, Republican, spoke over the weekend against the legalization of marijuana and said that black people are genetically unable to handle its effects.
He said, “What you really need to do is go back in the ’30s, when they outlawed all types of drugs in Kansas [and] across the United States.”
Alford said that according to the Garden City Telegram, “One of the reasons why, I hate to say it, was that the African-Americans, they were basically users and they basically responded the worst off to those drugs just because of their character makeup, their genetics and that.”
He had no source to back up his claims but did say later, “There are certain groups of people, their genetics, the way their makeup is, the chemicals will affect them differently. What I should have said was drugs affect people differently, instead of being more specific.”
He has denied that his remarks were racist to AP and defended himself by saying, “To me, that’s neutral. Basically, I got called a racist, which I’m really not, and it’s just the way people — the interpretation of people. To me, I’m trying to look at what’s really the best for Kansas.”
