Given the data, can we strongly suggest that marijuana, especially in the high-potency forms and fast delivery systems available, is now a serious risk factor in violent acts?
All the facts and increasing potency of THC in marijuana is a RED ALERT to parents. We inform parents of the warning signs of marijuana use, so they have every opportunity to steer youth away from irreversible harm.
The latest PopPot video tackles the question, is Marijuana a Risk Factor for Violence?
Thought Provoking Facts
PopPot is one of the few organizations in the U.S. exposing the connection between marijuana use and gruesome acts of mass violence. Our story Marijuana is the Common Web Between So Many Mass Killers gained national attention when it was quoted in this New York Post article: The Link Between Marijuana and Mass Shootings May Be Closer Than We Think. Since coroners don’t always test for marijuana in cases of violent crimes, we do not know the true statistics on marijuana and violence. Yet, in many news articles about crimes, we often find a mention of marijuana. In our recent article, Violence and Crime, we write about several high profile cases that prove this point.
Parents Opposed to Pot enjoys a victory over the marijuana hype now that both major party candidates for the presidency oppose the legalization of marijuana. Neither former Vice-President Joe Biden nor President Trump support nationwide legalization.
Published on Parents Movement 2.0. Most parents of teens today don’t realize there was a massive parent movement (1979-1992) that influenced Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign of their youth. Prior to the slogan in the early 1980s, those parents were taking very practical steps to change the local environments in which their kids grew up – reducing access and visibility of pot and drug paraphernalia and offering other parents at the time a way to think about teen drug and alcohol use and team up against it. Continue reading The parents succeeded before; we can do it again→
When I was 17 my BFF Lisa was in a single car accident. She was prone to smoking bong hits and driving with her knees. She was in a coma for a year and died. I first smoked pot with her and her mom. Lisa was her only child.
I blamed a faulty car for her death, not pot.
In my 30s, I partied with a young 20s co-worker from UMass. She had smoked strong pot, AK-47 for years. I stopped hanging out once she became paranoid, delusional and agoraphobic. She later was in a mental hospital for schizophrenia and has been on disability ever since.
I blamed her genes for her debilitating mental illness, not pot.
The rose colored glasses of denial.
I dated a patient, also named Lisa, at the dispensary who had extreme psychotic episodes whenever she smoked high potency Sativa. She would almost collapse, regress into a two-year-old state of mind, scream at the top of her lungs and then go into loud, joyous religious rapture singing.
The scariest experience was when in psychosis she uttered in a guttural deep voice so unlike her’s, “Choke her!” It was an alarming Sybil Stephen King moment that sent chills down my spine. I didn’t know if her split personality was talking about choking herself or me.
Needless to say, it was very hard being with her, we were not a good match whatsoever and broke up. I later learned that she committed suicide at 52.
I blamed her diagnosis of bipolar for her suicide, not pot.
Rip the Pot Van Winkle
Bong rips: “A noun that refers to the action of smoking from a bong. So named for the sound that air makes when it bubbles through the bong water.”
One time in college my friends had too much water in a bong – really dirty, unchanged, high potency bong water. The too high water level caused me to unintentionally swallow a huge mouthful of bong water when I released the carburetor.
I immediately started to hallucinate, almost passed out. Was lucky to stay conscious long enough to make it to the bathroom and vomit profusely. Took a heck of a long time for my mind to clear and body to recover. But I saw no problem with continuing to use pot.
For years I discounted all of those signposts showing that marijuana is dangerous because I was so enmeshed in my pot denial.
When, finally, I experienced such terrible physical and mental effects myself, this Rip the Pot Van Winkle woke up out of a pot slumber. The truth could no longer be denied. Horrible psychosis woke me up. I am SO lucky I survived.
I had the epiphany that pot caused my BFF’s death via DUI; pot caused my friend to become schizophrenic, and pot caused psychosis and suicide with my ex-girlfriend. Pot caused me to think violent thoughts like shooting people, and brought me to the brink of suicide.
Pot almost took me out. I couldn’t perceive the damage because I was high on pot.
By Anne Hassel, a new friend of Parents Opposed to Pot.
