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Featured, News Articles, Oregon

The Killing of the Portlandia Paradise

What Does it Take to Admit the Failures of Legalizing Pot?

The explosion began on North Kerby Avenue, Portland on Monday afternoon. Two men died. The Oregonian/Oregonlive published these photos which were courtesy of the public, Samantha Matsumoto and Olivia Dimmer.

This past week a butane explosion rocked a North Portland neighborhood killing two men, the home owner and a man working on the home. The force of the explosion was so great that it leveled the home, damaged the two adjacent homes and threw debris across the street into a park where children were playing.  When will Oregonians say “Enough is enough”? Legalization may not have caused this deadly incident, but it sure did contribute to it.

Oregon’s beautiful city, Portland, gained fame through the TV series Portlandia.  People are nice and the drivers are generally more polite there.  Although most major cities saw declines in real estate values during the recession, Portland’s real estate values rose very high.  With its food culture, microbreweries and movie theaters, Portland has become the place “young people go to retire.”   How long will the reputation last? 

Marijuana labs — sometimes called hash oil labs or BHO labs — were exploding before legalization, but the problem grew bigger after marijuana possession became legal in July 2015.  The number of burn victims rose from 7 to 30 within a year.  Today marijuana users can buy  “wax” or “dabs” from licensed dispensaries, but it is cheaper to make at home using butane.   Unlicensed chemists who run the marijuana labs may be trying to sell their own supply to undercut the legal market.   Or they be so addicted that risking death is not enough to stop them.

(Washington and Colorado outlawed the BHO labs after legalization; Oregon and California passed laws against the practice before legalizing weed.  Since those laws aren’t working, some places in California are banning the sale of butane.)

What about mental health care? 

The Vermont legislature failed to legalize pot this year.  Vermont’s savvy governor probably recognized the need for more mental health care before legalizing a substance that assaults the brain.  Former Congressman Patrick Kennedy, who makes mental health care his mission, had been warning of this problem.  Oregon illustrates the problem of not having a rock solid, foolproof mental health care system in place before legalizing marijuana.

 

This photo comes from an article in The Portland Mercury. 

Twice this year, psychotic stoners brought knives onto the public transportation in Portland and terrified the public.  On May 26, Jeremy Christian killed two men who were defending the Muslim women he was attacking.  He had declared his love for cannabis on Facebook.  Christian’s behavior was consistent with marijuana-induced psychosis.

On May 10, a 24-year-old in a mental health crisis terrified a group of people on the train, including a 17-year-old.   Unfortunately a policeman shot Terrell Johnson to death.  An investigation has cleared the officer of wrongdoing.  Johnson began smoking pot at age 12 or 13.  He was a healthy, “normal” young guy before THC assaulted his brain.   The police officer had no choice when the guy pursued him.  Anthony Bonofiglio, a man on a train the night before the final incident, described Johnson’s bizarre behavior in the police report.  Johnson was in full-blown psychosis!   His toxicology report revealed marijuana and a small amount of alcohol.

Psychosis is not a condition that the brain can just snap out of once it’s triggered.  A hospital in the state of Washington gets one or two new psychosis patients every day.  The medical staff at Providence St. Peter’s in Olympia stabilizes the patients with a drug Risperdal to stop the psychosis.  It’s a temporary treatment which doesn’t solve the problem.

Other Accidents and Lawsuits in Portlandia

Elizabeth Kemble was the first victim of a stoned driver after recreational pot shops opened in October, 2015. Photo: The Oregonian

A stoned driver killed pedestrian Elizabeth Kemble within a week of the opening of commercial pot stores.  Two months later, a driver high on pot killed bicyclist Martin Greenough in Portland.  His family is suing the city of Portland.   Furthermore, a construction worker who was burned in a hash oil explosion at a legal marijuana facility in Oregon is suing also.  The District Attorney of Clatsop County Oregon, Josh Marquis, warned ahead of time that only the lawyers would benefit from legalization.

Marijuana is already popular and adults have a right to do what they want with their bodies.  These popular arguments reveal how little our society cares about the young, mostly males, who go psychotic from marijuana.  If they die or lose their minds, it was their choice to use substances, the legalizers say.

On the other hand, how long can we persist in ignoring the rights of others who are affected by this failed experiment?  Marijuana labs do affect the neighbors, and they overwhelm our fire departments and burn centers.

Other marijuana-related emergency visits overwhelm the hospitals.  All of us must pay for it in some way.   We know marijuana legalization is not working in Washington, Colorado or California.

Recently a woman in Portland sparked outrage by posting on Facebook a photo of breastfeeding while smoking from a bong.   Maybe that image will wake people up to the fact that pot addiction really does affect others.   It is no paradise in Portlandia.

Oregon’s underground marijuana market is on fire.  Watch the video with this news clip.

Violence

Two Most Recent Incidences of Religious Violence

The Common Web in Ideological Killings

Two cases of religious violence are dominating the news, and marijuana allegedly played a strong role in the lives of both attackers.  Jeremy Christian’s rants on Muslim women in Portland, Oregon resulted in the stabbing death of two men who defended the women. The Daily Mail reports about Jeremy Joseph Christian:

“Christian’s Facebook site paints disturbing a picture of the suspect, and he describes himself by saying: ‘I’m an Ex-Con. I Like Comix, Cannabis and Metal-In Any Combination. If you are an Employer, F*** Off.’ ”  The suspect has been in jail previously for a string of charges including robbery, kidnapping and unlawful use of a weapon, and he brags about being an ex-con on his Facebook page.  Whenever there are erratic rants with psychotic overtones, we should suspect marijuana use.

Salman Abedi, Manchester terrorist

Salman Abedi, the perpetrator of the Manchester bombing last week was also an early marijuana smoker and drinker.  Friends remember him as a good footballer, a keen supporter of Manchester United and a user of cannabis.  An article The Independent, questions how he turned from a cannabis-smoking dropout to a Isis bomber.   The paper concludes that his path to radicalization echoes those of Islamist terrorists throughout Europe.  However, his victims were disproportionately young, and overwhelmingly female–another fact that can’t be ignored.

British journalists have been publishing a good deal about the connection between heavy pot use and jihadist terrorism.  It seems  cannabis obsession turns up frequently with ideological or religious violence when the killers have no relationship with their victims.

Rising Pot Use, Rising Violence

Scholars from Michigan recently published a summary of incidences of the past few years linking violence and aggression with marijuana use. They reveal little-known facts, including information about how marijuana affected Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Osama bin Laden.

As pot use rises, we can expect a corresponding increase in violence.   (In Chicago, known for a high murder rate,  58% of violent criminals tested + for recent marijuana use.  Humboldt County, marijuana capital of California, has higher rates for suicide and homicide than most counties in the state. )

Frequent pot use eventually causes major brain changes that affect a chunk of marijuana users.  (Studies show that even a small amount of pot use changes the brain.)  Critical parts of the brain that influence emotion, happiness, empathy and conscience are involved, even if not entirely understood.  Pot users are vulnerable to paranoia, unusual or rigid thought patterns, anxiety and/or depression.

Dylann Roof killed 9 African-American at a church in SC. His parents sought outside help to stop his marijuana use when he was 14.

When continued marijuana leads to ideological or religious violence, the usual pattern is that heavy marijuana comes first, the ideology follows and drug use continues.  Dylann Roof killed 9 African-American at a church in South Carolina.  Recent documents revealed that his parents struggled to get him to stop using marijuana at age 14.   Other ideological killers and pot users included Planned Parenthood shooter Robert Dear, Eric Rudolph, an abortion clinic bomber, and Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber.

Is Marijuana Always a Factor?

It  also is not necessary to blame marijuana for each and every person who becomes radicalized and fanatic.  Orlando shooter Omar Mateen carried danger and rage that dated back years and would appear to be far more complex.  In 3rd grade, instead of singing a school song “mariposa, mariposa,” he sang “marijuana, marijuana.”

The drugs found at the home of San Bernardino terrorists, Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook,  included benzodiazapines and amphetamines, according to British journalist Peter Hitchens.  However, Enrique Marquez, Syed Farook’s friend who bought the guns, posted on Facebook, November 5, 2015:  ‘No one really knows me. I lead multiple lives and I’m wondering when its all going to collapse on M[e].’  He referred to being ‘Involved in terrorist plots, drugs, antisocial behavior, marriage, might go to prison for fraud etc.

Radicalization comes easier to a brain that has been primed by marijuana or other drugs.  It’s not just for religious violence, but all kinds of ideological killers.  Mind control from  political groups comes more easily to the drugged brain.  Marijuana lobbying groups use terms like “Marijuana Majority,”  “inevitable,” “racism,” expecting people to be good sheep who follow.

Robert Dear, shooter at Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado.  A heavy marijuana user, he moved to Colorado for the pot.

We Can’t Ignore Correlation

Cutting out all marijuana use would not eliminate all murder and mass violence by any means.   However, as a society, we cannot ignore when these correlations occur:

  1. a shooter’s psychosis and or mental illness is triggered or made worse by marijuana use – (James Holmes, Jared Loughner, Eddie Routh and possibly Robert Dear are clear examples)
  2.  marijuana use numbs feelings so that shooters feel no empathy  (Robert Durst, Dylann Roof)  As marijuana manipulates the brain, it appears aid in the formation of psychopathology.
  3. Victims of PTSD turn to marijuana and it turns deadly for them and others.  Cascade Mall shooter Arcan Cetin was an early marijuana user who suffered from PTSD.  He killed five people at a Macy’s in Washington.  Stephen Bourgoin who recently killed five teens in a wrong way crash also suffered from PTSD.  If we offered better ways to identify and treat early PTSD, we’d have a less violent society.

A chorus of marijuana activists will say: “Correlation doesn’t equal causation.”  That’s what their leaders say, too.  For further study, please read Part 2, as well as these studies:

Miller, Norman S Miller and Thersilla Oberbarnscheidt.  Marijuana Violence and Law. Journal of Addiction Research & Therapy, January 17,  2017

Fazel S, Långström N, Hjern A, Grann M, Lichtenstein P. Schizophrenia, substance abuse, and violent crime. JAMA. 2009 May 20;301(19):2016-23.

Harris AW, Large MM, Redoblado-Hodge A, Nielssen O, Anderson J, Brennan J. Clinical and cognitive associations with aggression in the first episode of psychosis. Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2010 Jan;44(1):85-93..…… ↩