Topic: WorldNetDaily
Bob Unruh wrote in an April 6 WorldNetDaily article:
Canada has moved, on several issues, to an extreme, such as assisted suicide (freely available), transgenderism (a protected class), and speech limits.
Now it apparently is trying to take the point in the move to make drugs legal. That would be hard drugs – for children.
A report from Newpunch has revealed, "Justin Trudeau has announced plans to legalize hard drugs for children, including heroin and crack cocaine, as part of a new radical policy aimed at destigmatizing drug addiction."
The report said the city of Toronto is setting the pace.
Unruh's source is actually named NewsPunch, not "Newpunch," though it has since changed its name to The People's Voice. Media Bias Fact Check calls NewsPunch/The People's Voice a "clickbait news website that promotes extreme right-wing conspiracy theories and pseudoscience misinformation," where "Headlines use loaded emotional language" and "story selection almost always favors the right through negative stories regarding liberal policy and politicians." It concluded: "This website has zero credibility due to the routine publishing of fake news." Ad Fontes Media similarly calls the website "unreliable" and notes that it "has been accused of publishing misinformation and conspiracy theories."
Indeed, the article's claim that "Justin Trudeau has announced plans to legalize hard drugs for children" is unsupported; no proof is offered that he has announced that specific plan. In reality, Trudeau has allowed provinces to decriminalize drug possession on a province level in pilot projects in an attempt to treat drug use as a health issue, not a criminal one. While the Toronto pilot would decriminialize drug possession for all ages, it is false to claim that equals "legalizing hard drugs for children," given that the sale of such drugs is still illegal.
Unruh clearly doesn't understand the difference between decriminalization and legalization, because later in the article he falsely called Toronto's pilot "drugs-for-all policies."
Repeating a false story from a known fake-news operation is not the way WND should be trying to rebuild its lost credibility among readers, and it will only keep the website on its lengthy death spiral.
