“There’s no question that marijuana and other drugs – in combination with mental illness or other disabling conditions – are essential contributors to chronic homelessness.” Senator John Hickenlooper made that statement when he was governor of Colorado in 2017.
Photos of unhoused people living in squalid camps of Los Angeles (shown above), Portland and Seattle show up in our social media feeds. They’re taking over the streets in San Francisco, Vancouver and Denver. New York City, with its 1400 illegal pot shops, has a growing homeless population, too.
And although homelessness is a national problem, and substance abuse is not the only cause, the common factor of the worst-hit cities and states is legalizedmarijuana. In some areas, it has reached crisis levels. Even local leaders have declared a state of emergency to address the urgency of the situation. Continue reading Marijuana Legalization is Closely Linked to the Homelessness Crisis→
Fly-by-night pot shops operate everywhere in New York City, with little attempt to stop them. A new state legislature was elected; so can a new crop of legislators put Pandora’s evils back into the box? Can the state admit failure and undo its reckless law which legalized cannabis?
So why did New York legislators fall for a failed policy?
It’s the Bigger Fool Theory: If you bought say a gas station on the same corner where 6 other operators had failed, why would you do the same? They may be fools, but you were the bigger fool. New York is the biggest fool of all! Officials should have known that the black market expands and can’t be controlled once you legalize pot. Continue reading New York’s wild weed sales prove “Biggest Fool Theory!”→
Michael Shellenberger’s book San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities came out on October 12, 2021. The author is a veteran activist and advocate of progressive policies, but he’s concluded they aren’t working in San Francisco. He blames the homelessness problem in west coast cities on widespread mental illness, drug addiction and bad policy, not on mild weather or the numerous other reasons cited by homelessness advocates.
Shellenberger casts a wide net to gain a perspective based upon a diversity of viewpoints. His book combines personal experience, deep research and numerous interviews with policy experts; individuals of various races and political persuasions; formerly homeless and incarcerated individuals; homeless advocates and relatives of those living in the streets. He recommends a new policy, Cal-Psych, which would replace the failed program from Proposition 63 (on Mental Health) and come up with a new plan for conservatorships, voluntary and involuntary mental health and addiction treatments.
His plan is bold, but is it too late? Will severely ill, violent, drug-addicted offenders be able to submit to treatment? We hope San Francisco can go back to the beautiful city it once was, but the transition will be difficult. If anything, “San Fransicko” should be a warning to other cities not to follow the lead of San Francisco. However, it appears that many Californians are also revolting against the drug-enabling policies of the Bay Area and the state.
There, a night of partying — Bacardi rum, Mike’s Hard Lemonade and half of a marijuana cookie — left her feeling so intoxicated she says could not get out of a car on her own that night when she went with Masina and a group of his friends to get fast food, and she said she cannot recall how she got back inside the house.
She said the next thing she remembered after passing out was waking up with Masina raping her.
“It hurt. It was very painful,” she said, and though she said she felt “scared and helpless,” she tried to move her legs to stop him.
“Did you consent in any way to the sexual contact you’ve been describing?” the prosecutor asked.
“No,” the woman said.
The woman testified she passed out and awoke several more times throughout the night, each time to a different horror: She awoke to Masina forcing her to engage in oral sex so rough she could not breathe; she awoke unable to move from a couch and unable to reach someone to come help her; she awoke, wearing only a bra and a blanket, on the lawn of a neighboring home where she saw Masina’s car still parked outside and “that fear came over me again because I knew he was still in the house.”
Calling Out the Role of Marijuana is not “Victim Shaming”
The description of the rape is horrible. The evidence suggests that the football player and the woman were abusing substances before the sexual activity occurred. The law should not excuse this behavior towards a woman who has passed out.
Nine days earlier, Masina, her high school friend, had invited the victim to Los Angeles for a long weekend. At that time, Masina, the woman and another football player, Max Hill, partied hard. The victim took marijuana, two Xanax pills along with alcohol The woman alleges that both Masina and Don Hill raped her. Masina and Hill were suspended from the team, but a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles has been dismissed.
Alcohol can produce some pretty outrageous behaviors, but when alcohol mixes with marijuana or other drugs, extremes happen. This case, the Stanford swimmer’s case and many others exemplify why we need to educate against intoxication. It is not “victim shaming” to explain that the 19-year-old would not have passed out if she had did not eat half a marijuana cookie. The effects of marijuana cookies happen about two hours after ingestion.
Half of a cookie from Colorado, Washington or California could have as much as 50 milligrams of marijuana. Levy Thamba jumped off a building to his death after eating a marijuana-laced cookie. A few weeks later, Richard Kirk shot his wife after eating a marijuana candy and going crazy.
There is no mention of how and when Masina or the woman obtained the cookies. Who bought or provided the cookie? Was interstate drug trafficking involved? Calling out substance abuse as a factor doesn’t excuse rape, but it warns of the conditions in which rape is most likely to occur.
No on 2 Predicted Correctly
In 2014, the Florida Vote No on 2 Campaign forecast that marijuana would become the new date-rape drug. Journalists, respectable blogs and the marijuana industry laughed at the idea. No on 2’s prediction was correct. Let’s hope the prosecutor explores the role of the pot-laced cookie during the trial. It should serve as a warning against this type of impairment.
States should pass laws to clarify consent for sexual activity in order to guard against rape and unwanted sex. Equally important, educators need to inform about the role of substance abuse in domestic violence and rape. Pedophiles often give marijuana to their victims.
Even groups concerned with violence against women remain in the dark. Colleges don’t do enough to warn against drugs to avoid unwanted sex. In fact, the United States is quite backwards compared to other countries in failing to see the connection. Those who blame alcohol only, and not other drugs, are complicit in the denial.