"Did Pot Trigger Giffords Shooting?"

[Tarheel]

 

I have not posted in a while but this article was just too good not to share with my X'er friends and it's about one of our favorite subjects in the political arena...pot.  Commentator David Frum posits that Jared Lee Loughner, the Tucson gunman who shot Congresswoman Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) along with nearly two-dozen others...murdering six in the process, was mentally unstable due in part to his marijuana use.  With the renewed talk about more gun control and stricter gun legislation few in the MSM seem to be asking questions about this aspect of Loughner.  I thought that it might be fun to throw this topic in the SGA again; I think it's an interesting question.

Excerpt from David Frum's column on his website, all emphasis is my own:

Did Pot Trigger Giffords Shooting?
January 9th, 2011 at 12:56 am David Frum

After horrific shootings, we hear calls for stricter regulation of guns. The Tucson shooting should remind us why we regulate marijuana.

Jared Lee Loughner, the man held as the Tucson shooter, has been described by those who know as a “pot smoking loner.”

He had two encounters with the law, one for possession of drug paraphanalia.

We are also learning that Loughner exhibited signs of severe mental illness, very likely schizophrenia.

The connection between marijuana and schizophrenia is both controversial and complicated. The raw association is strong:

    * Schizophrenics are twice as likely to smoke marijuana as non-schizophrenics.
    * People who smoke marijuana are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia as those who do not smoke.

But is correlation causation?

Increasingly experts seem to be saying: “Yes.”

Time had a good summary of the expert view in an article published in July 2010.

Marie-Odile Krebs, professor of psychiatry at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) laboratory in France, and her colleagues published a study in June that identified two broad groups of people with schizophrenia who used cannabis: those whose disease was profoundly affected by their drug use and those who were not.

Within Krebs’s study population of 190 patients (121 of whom had used cannabis), researchers found a subgroup of 44 whose disease was powerfully affected by the drug. These patients either developed schizophrenia within a month of beginning to smoke pot or saw their existing psychosis severely exacerbated with each successive exposure to the drug. Schizophrenia appeared in these patients nearly three years earlier than in other marijuana-users with the disease.

After the Tucson shooting, there may be renewed pressure to control the weapons that committed the crime. But what about the drugs that may have aggravated the killer’s mental disease? The trend these days seems toward a more casual attitude and easier access to those drugs. Among the things we should be discussing in the aftermath of this horror is the accumulating evidence of those drugs’ potential contribution to making some dangerous people even more dangerous than they might otherwise have been.

"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice...

Full story:
http://www.frumforum.com/did-pot-trigger-giffords-shooting#

[AU_Tiger_2000]

The US government has never successfully banned anything.  They couldn't ban alcohol in the '20's, haven't been able to ban drugs of any kind, couldn't ban assault weapons under Clinton, etc.

[Tiger Wench]

My former B-I-L (ex hubby's brother) was a major league pot smoker who quickly developed severe paranoid schizophrenia, severe enough that he was Baker Act'ed into custody twice for being a danger to himself and others.  Eventually, he killed himself with a shotgun when the voices got too loud. 

I personally follow the theory that he already had a mental illness, and the pot (plus the occasional snort of cocaine) just made it worse.  Lots of mental and physical conditions can be exacerbated by substance abuse - alcohol especially.   

I do not believe pot causes schizophrenia - I think that is the anti-pot lobby trying to create another cause-effect scenario to justify continued prohibition.  An example- people who have previously unknown congenital heart defects can die the first time they use cocaine. (Len Bias)  That does not mean that cocaine is more likely to cause a heart condition but cocaine can certainly fuck you up if your heart can't handle the stress.

[Tarheel]

My former B-I-L (ex hubby's brother) was a major league pot smoker who quickly developed severe paranoid schizophrenia, severe enough that he was Baker Act'ed into custody twice for being a danger to himself and others.  Eventually, he killed himself with a shotgun when the voices got too loud. 

I personally follow the theory that he already had a mental illness, and the pot (plus the occasional snort of cocaine) just made it worse.  Lots of mental and physical conditions can be exacerbated by substance abuse - alcohol especially.   

I do not believe pot causes schizophrenia - I think that is the anti-pot lobby trying to create another cause-effect scenario to justify continued prohibition.  An example- people who have previously unknown congenital heart defects can die the first time they use cocaine. (Len Bias)  That does not mean that cocaine is more likely to cause a heart condition but cocaine can certainly phuk you up if your heart can't handle the stress.

Awful story Tiger Wench; I'm very sorry for that family situation.

[Snaggletiger]

Pot isn't addicting either, despite what some studies show.  I've been smoking every day for 15 years and I can quit any time I want.

[GH2001]

One of the few times we'll disagree tarheel. I think the guy's wacko Marxist ideology is to blame. His idol was Stalin and he read the likes of mein kampf and communist manifesto. I hardly think this guy gave a rats ass what Palin said. The left knows he is one of them which is exactly why they are urgently trying to pass the buck on this one.

[Snaggletiger]

It absolutely blows my mind how this incident could be so quickly turned into a polarizing political debate.  Regardless of whether Palin said this or Obama did that or Boner said something....the dude is a bona fide, certifiable wacko who took a gun to supermarket and started blowing people away.  No one's politics caused that and pot played no part in it.  If it wasn't politics, it would have been some other excuse he'd use to go off.  When you choose to take a gun and start blowing innocent people's brains all over a store..including a 9 year old little girl...no one is to blame other than the shooter himself. 

Someone strap his sick ass in a chair and hold a gun to his face at point blank range and let him stare at it for about an hour before pulling the trigger. 

[GH2001]

It absolutely blows my mind how this incident could be so quickly turned into a polarizing political debate.  Regardless of whether Palin said this or Obama did that or Boner said something....the dude is a bona fide, certifiable wacko who took a gun to supermarket and started blowing people away.  No one's politics caused that and pot played no part in it.  If it wasn't politics, it would have been some other excuse he'd use to go off.  When you choose to take a gun and start blowing innocent people's brains all over a store..including a 9 year old little girl...no one is to blame other than the shooter himself. 

Someone strap his sick ass in a chair and hold a gun to his face at point blank range and let him stare at it for about an hour before pulling the trigger.

True......but, you have to look at why he did it. The left was the one quick to point a finger because they knew WHY he did it. The word scapegoat comes to mind.

[Snaggletiger]

True......but, you have to look at why he did it. The left was the one quick to point a finger because they knew WHY he did it. The word scapegoat comes to mind.

I guess that's what gripes my grippies about this.  The dude is sick.  Why does there have to blame on anyone's part besides him?  Again, I would submit that if it wasn't politics, he would have found some other cause or excuse to go postal.

[Tarheel]

One of the few times we'll disagree tarheel. I think the guy's wacko Marxist ideology is to blame. His idol was Stalin and he read the likes of mein kampf and communist manifesto. I hardly think this guy gave a rats ass what Palin said. The left knows he is one of them which is exactly why they are urgently trying to pass the buck on this one.

I don't think we're in disagreeance over this GH.  I think that the speculation as to what role this wacko's pot use played and the effects that it may have had on his already sick brain is worthy of consideration but the jury is obviously still out since there is only one relatively small study cited for evidence.

[AUTiger1]

Agree with Snaggie on this one.....dude was sick and would have eventually found something to go off about.   One of his closet friends, if he truly had any, said the guy didn't read the papers, listen to or watch the news.  I don't think pot had anything to do with it either.  He was just fucked in the head and that is pretty much all there is to it.

[AU_Tiger_2000]

Agree with Snaggie on this one.....dude was sick and would have eventually found something to go off about.   One of his closet friends, if he truly had any, said the guy didn't read the papers, listen to or watch the news.  I don't think pot had anything to do with it either.  He was just phuked in the head and that is pretty much all there is to it.

I think the problem was that he was picking up the talk radio signal without turning the radio on.  Which is why I always keep my tinfoil hat firmly in place.

[AUTiger1]

I think the problem was that he was picking up the talk radio signal without turning the radio on.  Which is why I always keep my tinfoil hat firmly in place.

Exactly.  I keep one in the truck, at the house and at the office.....you, being prepared and stuff.

[GH2001]

I don't think we're in disagreeance over this GH.  I think that the speculation as to what role this wacko's pot use played and the effects that it may have had on his already sick brain is worthy of consideration but the jury is obviously still out since there is only one relatively small study cited for evidence.

I concur....agree even. With you all......the whole lot of you.