Marijuana.com

Buzzby

Child Killer Was A Pothead
Cliff Kincaid | The Conservative Voice | 12/15/2005

WARNING! Extreme Reefer Madness ahead!

The George Soros-funded campaign to legalize marijuana has run into a problem. Joseph Smith, convicted and sentenced to death for the abduction, rape and murder of 11-year-old Carlie Brucia, has been exposed as a pothead.

In an unsuccessful ploy to spare his life, his attorneys argued that he was a drug addict, used drugs on the occasion of the Brucia murder, and began his involvement with drugs by smoking marijuana. It looks like marijuana didn't have many "medical benefits" in this case.

It is fascinating to examine how little attention Smith's career as a drug-addicted pothead has received. The case itself has gotten enormous publicity, of course, and some reports have noted that his lawyers tried to get the jurors to avoid use of the death penalty on the ground that he was using either heroin or cocaine when he destroyed the little girl's life. But we could find only a few accounts about his use of the "soft" drug, marijuana, that we have repeatedly been told has no relation to one's use of harder drugs later in life. We found only a few stories about the killer's pot connection in some outlets in Florida, where the trial took place.

Those reports mentioned that Smith's attorneys presented Dr. Katie McQueen, a physician and lecturer in drug addiction at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, who testified that Smith's substance abuse history started with alcohol and marijuana use before he was a teen and then experimentation with cocaine and heroin in his teenage years.

This should have been big news. We are increasingly told by the major media that marijuana can make people feel better and can cure various diseases. Here was a case which links marijuana to a vicious murder.

In a related matter, despite claims from the Soros-funded Drug Policy Alliance that marijuana has many "medical benefits," a new study has found that heavy marijuana use damages adolescent brains and may facilitate mental disorders. The study was presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

Reuters news agency distributed a story about the research, noting that the study found that young people who regularly smoke marijuana "risk damaging a key brain pathway associated with language development and some predisposed to schizophrenia may contract the illness early." The study was based on brain scans.

More bad news for the pothead lobby has come from researchers at North Shore University Hospital-Long Island Jewish Healthcare System. A story carried by Newsday and the Kansas City Star are warning that marijuana "could be the match that ignites a genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia." They said that a teenage brain on pot "looks frighteningly similar to the brains of adolescents with schizophrenia."

The National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that roughly 3 million Americans aged 12 and older use marijuana on a daily or almost daily basis.
--
Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report and can be reached at cliff.kincaid@aim.org

(BuzzNote: Do conservatives really take this kind of crap seriously? How embarrassing for them!)

__________________

 

urania3

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Cum hoc ergo propter hoc. Also, I'm not aware of any claims that marijuana can "cure various diseases."

Adolescents. ADOLESCENTS. And "heavy marijuana use." I am sure heavy use of any drug--legal or otherwise--probably can damage developing human brains.

(BuzzNote: Do conservatives really take this kind of crap seriously? How embarrassing for them!)

If they didn't, what would Mr. Kincaid do all day instead?

__________________

Why is it that we cannot face the simple truth? Religion is at best unsubstantiated superstition. (Massimo Pigliucci)

HappyMan

Some of the bigest pot heads I now ARE conservatives. They are not too open about it, in part because of the being a pot head is indentified as liberal activity They do not want to be thought of as supporting Abortion or national health care because the smoke the daily doobie.

__________________
Bla.

and

Marijuana.Com Community Posting Guidelines

killer12382

I also knkow some hardcore neocons that enjoy marijuana.
When are they (whoever they are) going to stop with the off-the-wall claims about marijuana?

Murdock

What is not factual about this article?

All of the above does paint marijuana and the legalization movement in a bad light..

 

Buzzby

I haven't seen any claims the marijuana can cure any disease. Its role is always denoted as the relief of symptoms and palliation of pain, nausea, and negative mental states.


There is no apparent link. If the murderer was into cheeseburgers would that, somehow, "link" cheeseburgers to his criminal acts?

Other than those errors of fact, the whole article attempts to imply that marijuana turns otherwise healthy people into schizophrenics and that schizophrenics are typically crazed killers.

urania3

Very well...

I am not aware of any claims by Joseph Smith that his marijuana use was for "medical benefit."

There is only scant evidence that marijuana produces physical dependence and withdrawal in humans. Check out "CLAIM #9: MARIJUANA IS AN ADDICTIVE DRUG" under the "Myths" link above.

We don't excuse drunk driving behavior because they're intoxicated on alcohol, so why would it matter if you murder someone under the influence or not? (That they're trying to avoid the death penalty is besides the point)

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. This occurs when something is assumed to be the cause of an event merely because it happened before that event. Many marijuana users are breast fed as infants: does this mean breast feeding leads to marijuana use? See "CLAIM #13: MARIJUANA IS A 'GATEWAY' TO THE USE OF OTHER DRUGS" under the "Myths" link above.

Cum hoc ergo propter hoc. The fallacy is to assert that because two events occur together, they must be causally related ("Here was a case which links marijuana to a vicious murder"). Mr. Kincaid also alleges that major media has told us marijuana "can cure various diseases." I am not aware of any claims that marijuana can cure any disease.

I do not dispute the findings of this report, merely Mr. Kincaid's ignorance. What reputiable marijuana-legalization advocate supports teenage marijuana use?

This seems to be thrown in there to make this article credible. This is less than 1% of the population. How many aged 21 and older use marijuana on a daily basis?

Buzzby

Mountain Dew looks frighteningly similar to Prestone Anti-Freeze. That doesn't mean that they are similar in any other way. (The anti-freeze doesn't have nearly as much caffeine. )

dasamm

Didn't some priest once rape and murder a 12 year old boy???



I guess that means that entering priest hood causes rapes and murders of young children as well.



You can draw a correlation between ANYTHING if you want to.


A true positive correlation would be between being a dumbass and being the author of that article (Cliff Kincaid).

lilgrasshoppah

George Soros-funded campaign to legalize marijuana has run into a problem. Joseph Smith, convicted and sentenced to death for the abduction, rape and murder of 11-year-old Carlie Brucia, has been exposed as a pothead.

Old Cliffy does a lot of sneaky things in this 'article', but the above-quoted little gem is especially under-handed.

Not only is he smearing legalization of both medical and recreational marijuana, he's isolating the movement, by trotting out the old lie that George Soros is "funding the campaign."

Joseph Smith... has been exposed as a pothead.

Yes, I'll bet the police, forensic psychologists, and CSI were all sifting through the evidence going "now what could have motivated Joseph to do this evil thing? Oh look, a roachclip!"

I smoke a bowl a day minimum. Sometimes I go through an 1/8 a week. I have NEVER raped and killed an 11 year-old. The very idea is so morally repugnant to me that I am grieved just considering the hypothetical. None of my smoking' buddies would either.

Smoking pot does not lead to crime. That is a lie.

Oh, and Murdock, this article doesn't paint legalization in a bad light... any more than highlighting the 'fact' that he may have driven a Chevy paints Chevy's in a bad light. Joseph was not in the legalization movement, ergo nothing he did has anything to do with the legalization movement.

__________________
I got soul, But i'm not a soldier - The Killers