Unstable mind meets lots of drugs and lots of bad info. Hilarity does not ensue.

The Salvia high is short-term and rotten enough as an experience… something a sane you wouldn’t want to repeat. (Trust me on this one.) However, it could be extended and boosted by a marijuana joint laced with it. Just the sort of idea a schizoid teen would come up with.

A man writes “1+1 = 2.” A Bible is laid down, and a U.S. flag is laid atop it. Then, fading in over the red-and-white stripes of the flag, we see scenes of the jet flying into the World Trade Center on 9/11.

What does it mean?

Can I give it a try?

That coupled with the evolution animation shown right before hand means that mankind has evolved, developed religion, government and will soon kill us all with war.

Eh. I’ve never had a negative experience with salvia. It’s a rather ho-hum hallucinogen, one that I’m pretty sure is only used because only because all the superior alternatives are illegal.

I’m not sure what position Stacey is taking here, but that happens a lot. He has dethroned Glenn Reynolds as the prince of passive-aggressive blogging. Sometimes I think – no, no, I know – that he’s just trolling. You know, for the lulz.

Anyway, I’m not afraid of the truth. If Loughner smoked the evil weed and it drove him to murder and listen to negro jazz, I can accept that. So on one hand we have six deaths that were caused in part by marijuana use. On the other hand, we’ve got many more deaths resulting from cannabis prohibition. On balance, the death toll isn’t even close.

So this means Reefer Madness?

It wasn’t Sarah Palin it was weed?

That doesn’t make any sense either. Tons of people smoke weed and they aren’t shooting everyone.

How about we just go with “Jared Loughner was a mentally disturbed man who decided to shoot people”.

The end.

I .

There are two possible drugs that can impact the onset of schizophrenia: pot and speed.

I have known several people who used drugs and became mentally ill. Some of them were pot smokers, and some took other drugs.

Until there are studies that are not based upon the biases of the researchers re the possible effects of pot, we cannot say for certain one way or the other, but there is ample evidence that those who have the inherited tendency of schizophrenia are more likely to end up with that particular mental illness if they become users.

What sets Loughner apart is that he was using other drugs at the same time, and it would seem that the combination of those drugs more than likely is causal for schizophrenia.

I agree and I honestly think that the Salvia Divornium had a very big impact upon his mental condition. There is a lot of information on Wikpedia, even though I take issue with some comments that were made in the article.

It was not the weed that caused him to attempt to kill Gabriella Giffords.

It was a certain combination of factors – the smoking of pot (and we have no idea the strength of that pot) as well as the use of salvia divornium and other drugs. It also includes the possible tendency for inherited mental illness.

Whilst millions of people can smoke pot on a less than regular basis and with no ill effect, for some there is that danger that its use will trigger mental illness. Even so, the point here is that there was more than one drug being used, and that use seems to have precipitated the descent into what looks like paranoid schizophrenia.

Everyone seems to assume this guy was crazy. This is only because he murdered six people and tried to kill more, for no obvious reason.
But all murderfive ers are not crazy.
Think about this guy. He had no success with women. He failed at five jobs had no way to support himself.

(continued) and his drug taking (though perhaps not the marijuana) undoubtedly contributed to his systematically ruining all his hopes for the future. Certainly it caused the army to reject him.
No question he was an odd ball and showed zero social skills. No doubt he was to preoccupied with his own problems to make sense to others..

“The most likely cause is Loughner’s daily cannabis-smoking habit. ”

A far more likely cause is that he quit smoking in the months before the massacre, as witnessed by his peers. It wasn’t the pot that made him crazy, it going off the pot.

Article is stupid drivel. Out of the millions who’ve smoked pot and the presumably thousands of those who have real mental issues we only get one guy who shoot people up. Sounds like a much better record than Christianity. Is there a connection there? I doubt it in either case.

A lunatic with a machine gun. Just what we need.

You do realize that the demonization of weed is ridiculous and dangerous. Once someone uses it and finds out that, as I did, everything I’ve been told about weed is a lie, what else are the control freaks misinforming people about other drugs.

Your anecdotal testimony — “Just Say ‘Yes,’ Kids!” — would be far more persuasive if you would provide us with your actual name, and the names of others in your “little social circle” of long-term weedheads, so that your assertion that you and all of these people are fine, upstanding citizens could be checked.

For myself, I first got high in 1974 at age 14 — it was some killer Columbian — and within a year was actually dealing the stuff. That was back in what can only be described as The Great Stoned Age. The year I graduated high school, a survey showed that marijuana use among teens had reached an all-time high, and I doubt it’s ever been surpassed. (This was the era depicted in the film Dazed and Confused.) Back in the day, I used to buy dope by the pound and sell it by the quarter-pound, so I am certainly not unfamiliar with the Ways of the Weed. But I stopped smoking dope when it went past $40 an ounce retail, and haven’t missed it at all.

Getting high is a waste of time and money, is what it is. That young people working for $8 an hour should be spending their money to buy weed — what is it now, $140 an ounce? more? — is a horrible misallocation of resources. Is it really good for teenagers to spend a substantial portion of their time in a stupified haze?

And as for you: You’ve been getting high for 30 years, so you are clearly addicted to the stuff. It’s obviously impaired your sense of humor, so that you are unable to shrug off criticism of the drug you so persistently crave, but feel the need to justify your habit to others. Have you sought counseling for this problem?

The latest scientific thinking on schizophrenia is that it is caused by a retrovirus endogenous to the human genome.

http://discovermagazine.com/2010/jun/03-the-insanity-virus/

The use of marijuana and alcohol by schizophrenics is almost invariably an attempt to self-medicate. Don’t take medical advice from Britishers, the NHS has ruined them.

“The great weedhead Rampage”

Now THAT is funny. The only thing weedheads would “rampage” is a box of ding-dongs and Call of Duty. I realize you’re going for the snark factor here, but your admitted history with weed has given you a bias against those who didn’t turn in to drug dealers like you when they smoked weed. You would be shocked -SHOCKED I TELL YOU- at the number of widly successful people in business and entertainment who smoke a whole lot of weed. None of them turned in to drug dealers or psychopaths. But I suppose this kills your buzz, so it’s easier to just ignore that reality and play the asshole who wants to scare people who smoke pot in to thinking that you want to call the cops on them.

I guess if it makes you feel superior go ahead. But you just look like a jerk from this angle.

We have no idea of the strength of the alcohol he was drinking either. Was he a beer guy? A shot guy? Or a beer and a shot guy? You have to be careful with that stuff. Unlike pot it can kill you.

My evidence is anecdotal, but I have never seen a proper study of the possibility that the smoking of pot leads to schizophrenia.

The TRUTH is out there. And you can use Google to find it.

The NHS is a wonderful institution which highlights the differences between this mature civilisation and the stroppy adolescent that is the US.

Peter Hitchens makes me ashamed to be British but it’s cancelled out by his courageous and inspirational brother, a long tiime mmj advocate

Don’t take political advice from Britishers, either. The NHS has ruined them. Leftism is caused caused by a retrovirus endogenous to nationalized healthcare.

Having said that, I agree with everything you say apart from your ridiculous opinion of Britain. You really are behaving like a stroppy teenager kicking back against his Mum & Dad.

When you grow up you’ll see things differently