The stigma around cannabis use is on the decrease. Almost half the states in the Union allow some sort of marijuana use, be it recreational or medical.

However, its staunchest detractors are standing ground. According to Newsweek, Ann Coulter recently took to the front lines of the weed wars with some highly inflammatory comments about the drug.

Known for her controversial conservative commentary, Coulter made the marijuana comments while on a non-partisan political panel at Politicon 2017.

During a climactic back-and-forth with marijuana advocate and The Young Turks correspondent Ana Kasparian, Coulter really went for the jugular, claiming that marijuana legalization is “destroying the country” and stating that use of the substance “makes people retarded.”

Kasparian kicked things off by citing racial disparities when it comes to marijuana charges. “I don’t care if you’re black, white, Asian, Latino, doesn’t matter, you shouldn’t be prosecuted for marijuana possession. That’s a gigantic waste of our resources,” Kasparian said.

Coulter wasn't sure what the Young Turk was talking about. "Almost 90 percent of people in prison are in prison as a result of a plea bargain. No one gets arrested and tried for possession of marijuana," Coulter claimed, "But if they happen to have marijuana on them that’s what they plea it down. But you’re not going to prison for that, you’re going to prison because you held up a liquor store with a sawed-off shotgun, and they found pot on you."

An ACLU study for that almost 90 percent of marijuana arrests are for possession alone. Perhaps that is what Coulter meant to say.

As far as race is concerned, blacks are five times as likely (in comparison to their white counterparts) to face jail time for drug possession, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.

According to Coulter, a study she had read about race and weed told her the following: “There have been further studies where they actually drug test the person after asking ‘Do you smoke pot, or have you smoked pot in the last week?’ and it turns out there’s a racial difference in telling the truth on ‘did you smoke pot’? Blacks were about ten times more likely to lie and say they hadn’t smoked pot.” 

Photo: GIPHY

Moderator Touré asked just what this study was. Coulter said she couldn't remember where she'd read it, but that she'd email it to him after the panel. He has yet to confirm receipt of the study.

Whatever the study is, however, it certainly contradicts a 2008 National Institutes of Health report stating that over-self-reporting one's marijuana usage is common regardless of race.

If Coulter’s previous comments weren’t enough to cause sufficient controversy, she brought it all home by linking marijuana to mental disabilities and threw in some immigrant insults for good measure. “Marijuana makes people retarded, especially when they’re young. We’ve got enough busboys. We’re bringing in busboys by the million through our immigration policy. We do not need a country of busboys. We’re destroying the country.”

Wow. If you’d like to see the entire panel discussion, check it out below!