[Wolfie]

Whew! Get out the hip boots! That's some mighty fine BS to wade through.

[thoughtomator]

"I looked up and saw his eyes were huge and wide open. They were what I can only describe as wild and I was honestly terrified and feared for my life. I can still see his face and eyes staring down at me."

This does not describe someone high on pot. Pot is being used here to cover for something a lot more severe in its effects, possibly PCP.

[mtbopfuyn]

Perhaps, but there's a reason it's illegal. And should stay that way.

[MeanWestTexan]

Reefer madness.

Had a college roomate chronic pot smoker.

All he did was sit around, eat Ben & Jerry's ice cream, listen to "Phish" and work on intricate model airplanes.

About as dangerous as an accordian. About as useful, too.

[peacebaby]

Reading this, I'm having a hard time believing a marijuana smoker could be violent (I never was).

However, I saw the angry, unrational reaction of my adult daughter a few months ago after days of not smoking the stuff. She admitted to me that she withdraws.

As a former hippy smoker, I never knew...

[eyespysomething]

Did you know the feds started a new campaign last spring to tie marijuana and mental illness together?

Have you noticed a lot of articles lately about that very topic?

Just sayin'

[MineralMan]

What a crock o' crap! Pyschotic people remain psychotic when they smoke dope. Normal people remain normal. The attacker here was psychotic. Dope did not make him psychotic.

Reefer Madness!

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Reminiscent of the Anslinger/Hearst propaganda campaign of the 1930's to make hemp illegal to protect William Randolph Hearst's newsprint empire.

You could probably come up with an anectdote of how Hostess Twinkies create psychotic murderers.

[ClearCase_guy]

I think some folks are missing the point. It's not a "smoke a joint and go berzerk" sort of claim. It's this:

Last year researchers from New Zealand reported that regular cannabis smokers had almost double the normal risk of schizophrenia.

Feel free to disagree, of course. But the claim is that cannabis use may increase risk of acquiring mental illness.

But I think the attack on Voice is really about crime in the UK and not so much about drugs at all.

[wideawake]

According to the DSM-IV, the ingestion of large amounts of delta-9-THC can indeed produce violent psychosis.

It's a documented medical fact.

[mysterio]

I can hear Mojave and paulsen sprinting to their keyboards right now to post this article to the myriad of websites that they spam with their agitprop. "See, marijuana really is the devil weed! It makes people crazy! Next they'll be having sex with jazz musicians!"

[laney]

Oh HORSE PUCKEY!
Cannabis makes you go psychotic, like water gives you rabies!

Geez what will they come up next!?

[jmc813]

Last year researchers from New Zealand reported that regular cannabis smokers had almost double the normal risk of schizophrenia. Particular concern has focused on the strong "skunk" variety of cannabis.

Not that I'm all up on the slang that you kids are using today, but isn't "skunk weed" the crappy weak kind?

[rhombus]

This is some real deep bravo sierra. "Medical experts concluded that he was mentally unstable at the time of the assault due to "cannabis psychosis...lawyers hope that her decision to go public about her trauma will encourage the government, police and courts to rethink their approach to cannabis misuse.

Uh huh, yeah, right, got it. A woman is attacked by a nutjob who smoked marijauna therefore it wan't the nutjob who did the attacking it was the marijauna. I bet the kook drove an SUV too.

Simple answers for simple minds. Hey try this perscription...if you don't like that one we have 5 or 6 more you might like. Side effects? Well sure but we've got some other pills to fix the side effects and if they don't work...

[vin-one]

the evil weed strikes again...........

[Huck]

Groovy. Hopefully I don't turn psycho on the way back from lunch break :-P

[cardinal4]

I call BS. Weed does not make one psychotic, and underlying condition does.

[Galveston Grl]

There is mixed research on pot effects. If someone is prone to mental illness it makes perfect sense to me that pot would send them over the deep end. I hope you do not love pot so much that you would deny that it has different effects on different people.

A man I knew got so paranoid on pot, he became dangerous but realized it before he did anything criminal and stopped using. Others I know can smoke with only a reduced level of drive in life as a consequence, which only affects their personal income and advancement. They reduce their intellectual operation.

I have never known anyone who has not suffered a degree of consequence from using the drug on a regular basis. It is not free of consequences; it is not harmless. Just like booze.

[SuziQ]

Her attacker had told them that he came from a respectable background, that his father was a teacher and his brother was a solicitor. He had been welcomed into the family.

Had she never checked on this man's background before allowing him to stay in the house with her and her teenaged children? STOOPID!

[justshutupandtakeit]

Wonder what the real cause of this was?

[Sir Gawain]

Satire?