Cannabis and the Violent Crime Surge

National Library of Medicine ^ | 2022 | Allysia Finley

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Alex Berenson, author of Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence, pointed out that the New York Times had curiously removed from an article about the Uvalde school shooter a former coworker’s recollection that he complained about his grandmother not letting him smoke weed. The Times didn’t append a correction to the story as it might be expected to do when fixing a factual inaccuracy...

Assuming the elided detail was accurate, it would fit a pattern.

Mass shooters at Rep. Gabby Giffords’s constituent meeting in Tucson, Ariz. (2011), a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. (2012), the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla. (2016), the First Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas (2017), and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. (2018), were reported to be marijuana users. It could be a coincidence, but increasing evidence suggests a connection.

Roneet Lev, an addiction specialist who previously led the Emergency Department at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego, said in a recent interview with the American Council on Science and Health that California cannabis emergency-room visits climbed 53% in the three years after the state legalized recreational marijuana in 2016. Daily marijuana emergency-room visits in San Diego nearly quadrupled between 2014 and 2019. Cannabis-induced psychosis, she said, is fairly common. Some patients she treated experienced cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome from long-term use, which causes “scromiting”—screaming and vomiting. There’s no antidote. Some patients spend weeks in the emergency room waiting for placement in mental-health clinics…

Countless studies have also linked chronic cannabis use to schizophrenia.

[Blurb2350]

“Wake and bake.” But marijuana today is no longer the marijuana of Cheech and Chong. Selective breeding has made it much, much stronger than back in the days when it simply made the user sleepy and/or hungry.

[normbal]

I smoke two joints in the morning
and then I smoke two joints.

I smoke two joints before I smoke two joints
and then I smoke two joints

I smoke two joints, I smoke two joints
and then I smoke two joints

- actual Rastafarian song lyrics. Google it.

[AppyPappy]

I have only met a few people in my life who drink all day. Even hardened alcoholics know it is bad. I lived with several people who smoke Weed all day and I know a whole lot more who do. They think it is normal.

[JeemBeau]

A perceptive observation of attitudes. You wouldn’t want to be labelled as uncool, would you?

[PGalt]

Be cognizant of how things you put in your body affect you mentally and physically. Health / life BUMP!

[Robert DeLong]

Well, pot has gotten significntly stronger, so I read, since I smoked the stuff. I must confes violence and seeing myself as a different gender than that which I was born, were never issues. Alcohol by comparison was far worse, as it altered my personality considerably, and admittedly, not for the better.

Now, I imbibe with nothing, including cigarettes which were the hardest to abandon. Thus, I no longer really know what pot strength really is capable of doing. I have also seen changes occur at several levels that have nothing to do with pot. Therefore, blaming pot seems rather oversdtated, but I stated, I really do not know what the truth is.

One thing that has always been possible is for pot to become laced with additional drugs. In the 1980s pot was laced with formaldehyde, phencyclidine (PCP), or embalming fluid, which can cause severe respiratory failure and other serious health effects. I tried it once, and then steered clear whenever I was offered PCP. I guess I wasn't ready to be embalmed back then. 😁👌

I really liked pschedelics though, and have many fond & huorous memories of my experices with those drugs that I found very entertatining.. Thanks goodness I have a strong enough constitution that it never left any real lasting devastating issues. I am indeed lucky & thankful for that , but I was indeed playing a very dangerous game. I was a silly person back then. But I wasn't alone.

[dware]

I know that’s all I think about after a fat doobie: VIOLENCE! Well, according to a bag of Doritos.

[The Great RJ]

Cannabis is not harmless and legalizing it may do significant societal harm. Though often compared to alcohol, there is one difference. It is possible to consume alcohol without the sole intention of getting buzzed. Enjoying a glass of wine with dinner or a beer with food is different than downing an artificially flavored THC beverage or chewing on candy flavored THC gummies. These THC products are not made to enjoy for their nuanced flavor but solely to get a buzz.

[Mariner]

I’m pretty sure full half of all murders are committed by somebody who smoked pot.

Because fully half of Americans have done so.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

exactly. even Jesus drank wine.

[Spacetrucker]

I take ashwaganha, does more than that for me. Helps with ny rheumatoid arthritis too.