November 01, 2022 01:42 PM UTC

Ganahl Just Makes Stuff Up About Fentanyl On FOX News

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• by: Colorado Pols

We took note late last Friday of a new ad running from Republican CD-8 congresssional candidate Barb Kirkmeyer that falsely and repeatedly claims Colorado Democrats “legalized fentanyl,” a claim that has absolutely no basis in reality after legislation passed this year in Colorado significantly tightening penalties for possession of the drug. Previous to this year, illicit possession of small amounts of fentanyl without intent to distribute was a misdemeanor, but at no point has the drug ever been “legalized.” Despite a call for Kirkmeyer to pull this brazenly false ad down, it reportedly remains in heavy circulation in the district as of today.

There’s shading and spin in political ads, and then there are outright lies. @Kirkmeyer4CO falsely claims in this #CO08 ad that Dems “legalized fentanyl,”which simply isn’t true. A bipartisan #coleg bill reduced the penalty for possession, but it remained a crime. #copolitics https://t.co/Z781aeYcG0

— Ernest Lee Luning (@eluning) October 28, 2022

Not to be outdone, GOP candidate for governor Hiedi Heidi Ganahl appeared on FOX Business yesterday, proudly showing off her no-longer-offensive “Mad Mom” tagline and telling uncritical host Maria Bartiromo that, as you can see in the headline of the story, Gov. Jared Polis “decriminalized fentanyl.”

Colorado’s laws on the possession of fentanyl dominated a significant portion of this year’s session of the Colorado General Assembly. Sen. Kirkmeyer, who was present for the debate over this year’s bill cracking down on fentanyl possession, is fully aware that Colorado has not at any point “legalized fentanyl.” Although Ganahl wasn’t in the legislature this year, we don’t accept the idea that she simply misspoke on national television when she falsely claimed that Gov. Polis “decriminalized fentanyl.”

In both cases, these candidates must be judged to be willfully lying with full knowledge of the truth. Not all dishonesty is created equal, and politics is full of examples of spinning facts to fit an agenda. In the case of Republicans claiming Democrats “legalized” or “decriminalized” fentanyl in Colorado, if you understand enough about the issue to articulate these claims you cannot be excused by ignorance for lying.

In previous elections here in Colorado, brazenly false claims of this kind were met with a vigorous response from media fact-checkers, outside activist groups, not to mention the aggrieved campaigns all clamoring to ensure that the lie doesn’t take root to become persistent mythology. In 2022, for whatever reason, Republicans are getting a pass to tell indefensible lies about fentanyl policy that would not have been allowed to circulate unchallenged in previous elections.

We hope this lie doesn’t work–because if it does, as Donald Trump has taught us, lying is the new normal.