Jared Loughner: Reefer Madness?

The Tucson massacre provides arch-Tory Peter Hitchens an excuse to stick his thumb in the eye of libertarians:

The most likely cause is Loughner’s daily cannabis-smoking habit. The link between this drug and serious mental illness grows clearer every day. Wickedly, the dope lobby still tries to deny this and seeks to legalise it.
Loughner has been, for much of his short life, a habitual smoker of this so-called ‘soft’ organic drug. This is not in doubt. Police records, the testimony of U.S. army recruiters who rejected him partly on these grounds, and the accounts of several friends confirm that Loughner is a marijuana victim.
Yes, I know. Not all cannabis-smokers lose their minds. And not all cigarette-smokers get cancer. [Oooh! Taking shot at his brother Christopher? — RSM] But in both cases the risk is enough to cause concern.
When police caught him driving a car that stank of marijuana, Loughner was let off,
as he would have been here. So much (as usual) for the non-existent ‘war against drugs’.
Cannabis is now effectively legal in Britain and in several parts of the USA, where this dangerous and unpredictable poison is ironically permitted for ‘medical use’.
Arizona voters, fooled by years of cynical and shameful ‘cannabis is harmless’ propaganda, approved just such a stupid law in November.
The town council of liberal Pima (scene of the murders) last week took the first step towards licensing ‘dispensaries’ for dope.
Arizona has always had plenty of guns. America has always had heated political rhetoric. What is new is that it now has legal dope as well.
Those who are seriously interested in public safety should worry less about guns and radio shock jocks, and more about the little packets of madness on sale in every school.

Certainly a controversial opinion, but let me ask you try something. Take five minutes to watch the opening sequence of Zeitgeist and tell me if you don’t see its psychedelic element:

If you have any background in psychology, would you say that young people under the influence of marijuana — or salvia divinorum or cocaine or psilocybin, which were among the drugs Loughner reportedly used — are highly suggestible?

And did you notice what happened in that video from 2:45 to 3:05? A man writes “1+1 = 2.” A Bible is laid down, and a U.S. flag is laid atop it. Then, fading in over the red-and-white stripes of the flag, we see scenes of the jet flying into the World Trade Center on 9/11.

What does it mean? What is being symbolized and suggested by that 20-second sequence? Why do you think the drug-addled Jared Lee Loughner was so obsessed with Zeitgeist? And what ideas did it convey to him?

Click here to read the rest at The Other McCain.

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