There were already plenty of reasons for Donald Trump’s base to oppose what appears to be a likely forthcoming move to reschedule marijuana from a Schedule I drug to the far less restrictive Schedule III status. But yet another one arose from the tragedy in Minnesota last week.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that Robin Westman, the transgender lunatic who murdered two children and injured more than 20 other victims at Annunciation Catholic Church and School, was employed at a marijuana dispensary until a just two weeks before his meticulously-planned attack.
The Tribune further reported that Westman was fired for showing up late to work, or not at all—a behavior common among heavy users of the product the dispensary sells. The New York Post translated Westman’s long manifesto, which was written partly in a code using Cyrillic characters, revealing that Westman attributed his sick state of mind to a combination of trans ideology and the long-term effects of marijuana usage: “Gender and weed f–ked up my head,” he claimed. “I wish I never tried experimenting with either. Don’t let your kids smoke weed or change gender until they are like seventeen.”
Now, plenty of people waste their formative years stoned on the couch without ever feeling the urge to shoot up a church or school. Many grow out of it while others, ensnared, simply grow into burnt-out losers or devolve into some relatively benign state of anxiety and depression.
Still, the stakes are higher than ever as the Trump administration considers reclassification—a move that would bookend the decades-long march towards normalizing stoner culture, as I wrote last month. This latest shooting and the shooter’s clear ties to cannabis use—noted in his manifesto—make it worth exploring the very real links between marijuana usage and much more serious mental illness.
Poster Comment:
The Catholics at Chronicles have gone all goofy again.
Why not address the obvious emotional problems first?