Posted on 05/15/2019 6:15:32 PM PDT by Kaslin
Contrary to the image of potheads as peaceful stoners, "cannabis-dependent psychotic patients were four times as likely to be violent," Alex Berenson writes in his magnificent new book, Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence. "No other factor was nearly as important. Alcohol use, which was common among the patients, made no difference."
So where are all the marijuana-induced murders?
As Berenson says, they're hiding in plain sight. But until you're told about the cannabis-psychosis link, you don't even notice. Crime reporters don't want to look uncool by asking about the perp's marijuana use, and, inasmuch as being high isn't a legal defense, neither prosecutors nor defense lawyers have an incentive to request that suspects be tested for pot.
At the end of his book, Berenson runs through a slew of depraved murders, inexplicably gruesome -- until you find out the perpetrators were high on marijuana. None of these were reported as cannabis-induced homicides.
In 2016, 35-year-old comic book artist and screenwriter Blake Leibel scalped his girlfriend, stripping her skull to the bone, drained her body of blood, then hid out in their West Hollywood condo with her desiccated corpse for more than a week. Only after the girlfriend's mother tricked the police into knocking down the door did they discover the grisly scene.
The girlfriend had complained to her mother that Blake smoked "huge" amounts of marijuana.
In 2017, Dean Lowe, a 32-year-old cannabis dealer in Cornwall, England, beat his girlfriend to death, chopped her body into tiny pieces and made a necklace of her teeth. Like Leibel, Lowe lived with her remains in their apartment for eight days, disposing of her body parts, bit by bit, by flushing them down the toilet and leaving the rest for the garbage collector.
The murder was discovered months later, after Lowe texted a cousin, saying, "Either I'm getting set up or I've murdered (my girlfriend). I had a blackout, hazy memory and woke up with a body on the floor. I am scared so I just got rid."
Lowe had long boasted that he was "the biggest stoner in the world."
In December 2017, William T. Jones Jr. walked up to a complete stranger, 21-year-old Jared Plesec, a Salvation Army volunteer in Cleveland, and shot him in the head. Jones then hysterically raged for a solid four minutes -- captured on Facebook Live by a passerby -- screaming "F*ck Trump!" and "They're going to kill us all!"
Over the next hour, he rampaged through Cleveland, shooting at people and committing several carjackings before finally being captured by the police.
Jones had never been diagnosed with any mental illness. Blood samples taken after his arrest showed the presence of only one drug: marijuana.
After reading Berenson's book, you'll suddenly start noticing pot-induced murders all over.
Just last week in Ventura County, California, a preliminary hearing was held in the case of Bryn Spejcher, an employed, well-educated 28-year-old with no criminal record or history of mental illness. She stands accused of stabbing her boyfriend to death -- after smoking pot for the first time.
On May 28, 2018, police arrived at Chad O'Melia's apartment around 1 a.m. to find Bryn kneeling over his lifeless body. As soon as Bryn saw the deputies, she took the 8-inch serrated knife she was holding and stabbed herself in the neck.
The coroner testified that Chad had been stabbed 108 times, from his head to his knees, cutting his trachea, jugular vein and carotid artery and perforating his heart twice. Bryn's Siberian husky had also been stabbed.
Bryn told police she'd never smoked pot before and wanted to try it, but when she felt nothing, Chad said he'd give her something more "intense." After one puff from the bong, she said she felt like she was dying, ran to the bathroom, then back to Chad and began frantically stabbing him because voices were telling her to keep fighting to stay alive.
A forensic scientist from the crime lab confirmed that no drug other than THC was present in Bryn's blood and no drug other than THC was found in the bong.
The Los Angeles Times has yet to mention this case.
Last Sunday's New York Times magazine featured a story by Wil Hylton about how his cousin tried to murder him for absolutely no reason a few years ago. Hylton blamed toxic masculinity: "the conventions of male identity were toxic ... Masculinity is a religion."
There was a rather more obvious explanation screaming out from his story:
-- Hylton's repeated mentions of his cousin's pot smoking, e.g.: "He always wanted to smoke a bowl";
-- The cousin was apparently thrown out of the military for selling hashish; and
-- The reason his cousin beat Hylton to a bloody pulp in the middle of a child's birthday party was that ... he was hearing voices no one else could hear.
Times readers filled the "Comments" page with indignation at toxic masculinity, but one, a Toronto psychiatrist, wrote: "The article doesn't mention that his cousin's regular marijuana use could be one possible cause of his paranoid hallucinations."
Finally, you may have seen the story about a quintuple-homicide near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, earlier this year. Around 8 a.m. on a Saturday in January, 21-year-old Dakota Theriot is accused of fatally shooting his girlfriend, his girlfriend's father and brother, then driving to his parents' house, where he killed them, too. (His father lived long enough to identify his son as the killer.)
Perhaps Theriot is just a run-of-the-mill schizophrenic. But I happened to notice that his only prior arrests were for: possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana.
Interesting post and thanks for sharing that.... I don’t think society has a clue of how potent this legal marijuana is and few people understand or even show interest in the potential impact on mental health.
Do any of them dispel the points made in the 2002 piece? Which ones, and how?
the efforts of NORML to portray marijuana as completely harmless.
Still telling this lie?
Continued criminalization certainly won't accomplish that.
Liquor has a much higher level of the drug alcohol than does beer; what of it?
One of my ex’s was a major stoner, and developed a paranoid conviction that spirits from dead shamans were telling him the world was going to end.
>>I agree, but only if the regulators keep the consumers, not the peddlers interests centermost,that they are fully aware of the health risks and have some way to keep current with research.
This is a tall order for Washington.<<
______
You mean a tall order for the state that is regulating it, not Washington DC, right?
Jared Loughner. A pot-smoking ultra-leftist, and mass shooter. I knew him only from his online posts, which ended abruptly after his arrest.
It’s tough getting a good
Cell signal when your
In a Cell.
So I’ve heard.
But you can always use the exercise equipment.
Actually Annie Rexic should try it to generate an appetite. Wine and liquor are not in the nutrition pyramid. Only the hard stuff could make an otherwise reasonable woman swoon for Romney, let alone consider Comrade Sanders.
The link is the neurotransmitter dopamine.
Marijuana (THC) increases dopamine - resulting in good feelings and increased appetite. That is not a problem for most people.
Having too much dopamine, or being excessively sensitive to it though, is characteristic of schizophrenia/psychosis. Most anti-psychotic medications work by suppressing dopamine.
So people who are borderline, are pushed over the border by the increase in dopamine from marijuana or THC.
The link is the neurotransmitter dopamine.
Marijuana (THC) increases dopamine - resulting in good feelings and increased appetite. That is not a problem for most people.
Having too much dopamine, or perhaps being excessively sensitive to it though, is characteristic of schizophrenia/psychosis. Most anti-psychotic medications work by suppressing dopamine. Drugs (like marijuana) that increase dopamine, might well be called pro-psychotic, in that they have the opposite effect of the anti-psychotics, on dopamine levels.
So people who are borderline, are pushed over the border by the increase in dopamine from marijuana or THC.
Reefer madness may not be for everyone, but it is for some.
This newseltter goes into the ties between schizophrenia and marijuana. It turns out that the users of weed before 18/27 are at a significantly higher risk of having brain damage that leads to schizophrenia and other mental health issues.
Hearing voices that no one else can hear is a probable tie to schizo behavior. The article quotes one study that estimates the incidence of schizophrenia would decrease by 13% if marijuana use was eliminated.
According to the medical studies discussed in this article, brain damage linked to weed use is a serious problem, especially to those who use weed before 18 when brain development is occurring.
Virtually EVERY pot user I've ever spoken to says weed is no more dangerous than alcohol use. Not one of these people would believe anything from a medical study. They used weed and they haven't killed anybody so it must be OK (which I think explains their defense of their drug use).
...four times as likely than who?
Regards,
This is an important scientific question — whether those likeliest to go mad are also likeliest to WANT to smoke pot. They are probably also likeliest to WANT to go on roaring drunks, or to abuse something else if neither of those is practical.
Well, it will end. But only when God wants it to end. Shaman spirits cannot hurry it up.
> Virtually EVERY pot user I’ve ever spoken to says weed is no more dangerous than alcohol use.
Probably because pot smokers tend to know other pot smokers, and by and large their firsthand experience tells them that the assertions that it contributes to violence is absolutely ludicrous.
> Not one of these people would believe anything from a medical study.
Perhaps that’s because of decades of fraudulent studies put out for the very same purpose this article was created.
Fool me once, shame on me. Fool them twice, shame on the stupid gullible idiots who got conned again, this time willingly.
Also this: “No other factor was nearly as important.”
There’s your red flag that the author is a goal-seeking fraud.
If his data didn’t even show the 13-do-50 phenomenon - a factor far far larger than 4x - then it’s bunk.
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