A Maryland police chief apologized after he testified in court Tuesday that 37 people died from marijuana overdoses the same day smoking pot became legal in Colorado, the Capital Gazette reported.
Michael Pristoop of the Annapolis Police Department was testifying against a bill that would decriminalize marijuana use in Maryland when he cited a false story published on The Daily Currant's website.
The story claimed that 37 people died after smoking too much cannabis.
"The first day of legalization, that's when Colorado experienced 37 deaths that day from overdose on marijuana," Pristoop said at a hearing in front of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, the Gazette reported. "I remember the first day it was decriminalized there were 37 deaths."
However, the senator who proposed the pot legalization bill told Pristoop he was relying on a false source.
"Unless you have some other source for this, I'm afraid I've got to spoil the party here," Senator Jamie Raskin, from Montgomery, said according to the Gazette.
"Your assertion that 37 people died of a marijuana overdose in Colorado was a hoax on the Daily Currant and the Comedy Central website," Raskin told Pristoop.
Raskin told The Huffington Post that everyone at the hearing dropped their notebooks when Pristoop mentioned the overdose story.
The Daily Currant is a satirical newspaper known for publishing false stories, including a report that the man responsible for the Olympic Rings malfunctioning during the Sochi games was found dead.
Pristoop issued an apology after his testimony.
"After conducting additional research, it appears that was not accurate at all," Pristoop told the Gazette. "I believed at the time that was accurate.
"I'm guilty of being a human being. I tried really hard to present verified facts," Pristoop told the Gazette.
Raskin's bill would legalize, tax and regulate marijuana. Raskin told The Huffington Post there are not many arguments left to support criminalizing pot.
"It makes sense this would be the first article to leap to [Pristoop's] attention, because there's no data out there to support his position," Raskin said, "This is marijuana prohibition's last stand, citing a hoax article from the Internet."
