A Higher Love, by Heather Bacchus, is the latest of a number of books by parents who write the story of losing a child because of cannabis.Despite her intense grief and the unexpected loss of her son, Randy Michael Bacchus III, Heather provides a model for finding hope and love as she shares the story of her loss. The book’s subtitle is“A Journey through Addiction, Cannabis-Induced Psychosis, Suicide and Redemption.”
Randy was born in November of 1999 and died in July of 2021.He started using marijuana at age 15. As Heather recounts her story, the reader is tempted to look for clues.What were the reasons to worry?Although the parents, Randy and Heather, discovered their son’s pot use and did not shrug it off, they didn’t know how dangerously different today’s marijuana is.Nor did they understand all the new forms of high-potency marijuana, including dabs and vapes. Continue reading Finding A Higher Love: Heather Shares Her Son’s Story→
Everything said about why marijuana should be legalized is FALSE. In fact, some promises turn out to be the exact opposite of what the legalizers told you. Here are 10 reasons marijuana legalization fails:
BLACK MARKET INCREASES NOT DECREASES: The Black Market for marijuana grows after legalization. Foreign cartels buy houses and land to grow pot. Law enforcement can’t tell the difference between legal and illegal growers. Only after utility bills reveal they’re using high powered grow lights in basements can utility companies figure it out. Even in states where home grows are banned, foreign cartels found ways to grow in national forests. If Florida legalizes, these growers will hide in the Everglades and Ocala and the other national forests.
THEY SAID REGULATION WOULD MAKE IT SAFER FOR OUR CHILDREN. Now that parents are using, adolescents frequently sell or distribute edibles found at home or obtained from others in their high schools and middle schools. Teens have always been able to access alcohol despite age restrictions, so why would marijuana be different? Regulate to keep away from your kids, the advocates argued. Since marijuana legalization, 21-year-olds have been seen going into shops and reselling to teens.
Claiming SAFE PRODUCTS THROUGH REGULATION IS a falsehood. Legalization doesn’t stop mold, pesticides, ammonia, heavy metals and toxins from being part of dispensary marijuana. (People died from vaping lung disease traced to state-regulated marijuana shops in Oregon, California and a medical marijuana dispensary in Delaware. ) You cannot make an inherently dangerous product like THC safe. Regulation Resistance develops in every state legislature. When sensible regulation comes before a state legislature, the cannabis industry whines and politicians cave to them. No state regulates edibles enough to stop the large number of very small children who end in the ER from marijuana toxicity, breathing problems and the need to be intubated. The idea of putting potency caps on THC or banning edibles are particularly problematic, as the industry refuses this regulation in every legislative session and fights for more.
PUBLIC SMOKING BANS ARE A CATCH -22. Many people who support legalization do so because they don’t want anyone arrested for smoking a joint. After legalization, pot users enjoy their public smoking freedom. If law enforcement started arresting them, it would defeat one purpose of legalization — to stop arresting people. Fines for public smoking are not enforced, even they exist. If you ask your neighbor to stop smoking pot because your child has asthma or your mom has COPD, you can’t expect them to honor your wishes. Once a state legalizes, the rights of cannabis users take precedence over everyone else’s rights. Law enforcement can’t do anything. Apartment smoking bans are not honored. Sometimes the only way to stop that neighbor from smoking is a lawsuit. Secondhand marijuana smoke is more toxic than secondhand tobacco smoke.
DOESN’T BALANCE STATE BUDGETS: Tax money is VERY LOW compared to what was promised. It is less than 1% of total state revenue in every state. After about 3 years the tax revenue goes way down; it went down 20% each year in Colorado since 2022.
DEATHS GO UP, NOT DOWN. Cannabis legalization did not stop the opioid and other addiction epidemic in any state. In Colorado opioid deaths went way up after legalization. In California, many young teens went straight from using marijuana to buying pills online that turned out to be fentanyl. Anyone who believes that marijuana substitutes for pain medicine should be asked why our drug deaths rose after legalization.
CAN’T STOP STONED DRIVERS – In the states with legalization, traffic deaths have increased between 10% to 25%. Even in fatal crashes when a driver has been using cannabis, it is difficult for law enforcement to prove impairment. There is no uniformly acceptable test comparable to the breathalyzer used to measure alcohol, so driving stoned is much easier to get away with than driving drunk! Plus, more people are mixing alcohol and cannabis when they drive greatly intensifying the impairment. Even worse, cannabis users often claim that they driver “better” stoned.
SOCIAL EQUITY FAILS. Despite robust social equity requirements in some states, the industry is dominated by large multi-state operators. The movement is toward consolidation and monopoly, not Ma and Pop shops run by minorities. Equity owners are duped by state governments that loan them the money to start the stores even though they will make very little profit in return. It’s a scam. Politic explains the process in an excellent article, Broken Promises: how marijuana legalization failed communities hit hardest by the drug war.
YOUTH USE BECOMES MORE PROBLEMATIC after legalization The real problem is that the teens who use after legalization use the high-potency products like dabs and vapes at much higher rates than the adults. Teens who use these products are much more likely to have psychotic breaks compared to teens who used the low-potency marijuana available before 2000. Legalization is making it all that much more dangerous. Only two states enacted potency caps, which are 60 percent THC, 20x higher than the old-fashioned pot!
OPTING OUT DOESN’T WORK! So many times the towns that opted out can only maintain it with incredible effort fighting the industry again and again. Sometimes government bodies let the pot shops in without public notice, because the industry is so sneaky in the way it works the politicians.
IF STATES CAN’T GET LEGALIZATION RIGHT, the national government will not get it right. As Bill Gates said, “It’s fine to celebrate success, but it’s more important to heed the lessons of failure. Let’s cut our losses now. For more information, read:
Wall Street Journal: How New York and California Botched Marijuana Legalization, April 28, 2023, by Zusha Elinson and Jimmy Vielkind
We’re sick and tired of being ridiculed, ostracized and shamed by those who deny the way marijuana can ruin lives! At last, many parents put their platform in print! When your child has a drug problem — and that drug is marijuana — they may not know it. But there is no limit to the entire family’s suffering.
For Laura Stack, the outcome was the worst, the death of her son Johnny. Laura told that story in her book, The Dangerous Truth About Today’s Marijuana. She also gave valuable insights into the science behind the harms of cannabis.
What have we learned 10 years after the deaths of Levy Thamba and Kristine Kirk? We ask that question as April 15, the tenth anniversary of Kristine’s death, approaches. Unfortunately, the USA continues to make critical mistakes by allowing the expansion of marijuana. One problem is the increasing number of violent episodes related to cannabis-induced psychosis, including four killings in Rockford, IL.
This article covers some of the many psychotic events and tragedies related to THC in the early legalization states of Colorado, Washington, Oregon and California.
Richard Kirk of Colorado killed his wife on April 15, 2014, after ingesting marijuana candy. Before it happened, Kristine Kirk called 911 and explained her husbands was hallucinating and wanted her to kill him. Just minutes before police arrived, he shot his wife. Three children witnessed the event and are now in the custody of Kristine’s parents. Kirk is serving a 30-year sentence for the crime.
Luke Goodman, 23, traveled to Colorado with his family and tried marijuana Colorado on March 21, 2015. When two edibles did not affect him, he took three more. Several hours later he shot himself and died three days later. The family believes that marijuana was the cause of his suicide.
Top to bottom, l to r: Levy Thamba, Kristine Kirk and Richard Kirk; Robert Corry and Luke Goodman; Hamza Warsame, Brandon Powell and Bryn Spejcher
Cases from Washington
Hamza Warzame, 16, Seattle, jumped 6 floors to his death after smoking marijuana for the first time with a 21-year-old friend in 2015. At first, police investigated a possible hate crime because Warsame was a Muslim. The cannabis was purchased legally in a Seattle recreational pot store, but it was illegal for Warsame to be using it. He may have been trying to jump from building to building, without trying to kill himself.
Crystal Daniels, of Washington, drove her vehicle into a utility pole around 1:40 AM on June 17, 2015. The crash caused power lines to fall to the ground and resulted in “about a hundred yards of flames.” When King County sheriff’s police arrived at the scene, they had to pull her out a back window of the vehicle. She was completely naked and babbling incoherently. The electricity outage affected about 4000 residents in Shoreline, a city about 10 miles from Seattle. She had 28 ng of THC hydroxyl in her blood and 8.5 ng. of THC.
Brandon Powell, an 18-year-old from Estacaba, Oregon had a panic attack after taking a highly potent marijuana dab in March 2017. He left home in his pajamas and search missions found dead in a river one month and a half month later in a river. Dabs are a highly potent form of marijuana that is more popular with teens who use marijuana than with adults. His case is similar to that of Jelani Day from Illinois
California drug normalization; teen parties with heavy marijuana use
On May 28, 2018, Chad O’Melia and Bryn Spejcher were smoking marijuana out of a bong in southern California. Bryn became acutely psychotic and stabbed Chad over 100 times, ending his life. She also stabbed herself and her dog. The Bryn Spejcher trial was covered in numerous news outlets earlier this year. A judge sentenced her to probation and community service, even though the jury convicted her of involuntary manslaughter. Numerous podcasts discuss the trial, including Every Brain Matters and Dr. Daniel Bober.
Autopsies listed “drowning” as the official cause of death for Keili Rodni, Jelani Day and Brandon Powell, but would they have drowned without the THC? Probably not! The bottom line — with or without psychosis — marijuana raises your odds of death by accident or otherwise.
Odd cases of psychosis in Colorado
In the Denver Mall, a homeless man started physically attacking people with a PVC pipe, in June, 2016. The 28-year-old man had moved from Indiana to Colorado for marijuana. Mayor Michael Hancock, blamed the rash of violence on the 16th Street Mall on legalized marijuana. “This is one of the results of the legalization of marijuana in Denver, and we’re going to have to deal with it.”
Perhaps Virginia’s governor, Glenn Youngkin, and New Hampshire’s Governor Chris Sununu have learned lessons from other states. Only two states, Vermont and Connecticut, cap the potency of THC. States like California and Washington refuse to pass sensible regulations about warning labels. They care more about pleasing wealthy donors invested in the cannabis industry. Too many lives have been destroyed.
Pot advocates who claim teen use doesn’t rise with legalization remain silent about the use of high-potency THC products promoted since legalization. Part 2 will cover psychotic episodes in other states.
