Are we going to ignore the obvious red flag in a cloud of stinking smoke?
Bobby Crimo III, the suspected mass shooter who gunned down seven people and injured dozens at the Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Illinois, was a stoner. Known in his local community as a rapper, Crimo wasn’t known for radical political beliefs. Instead, former collaborators who posted about him online in the aftermath of the shooting describe Crimo as a heavy marijuana user.
A Twitter user called @1cowtools tweeted: “Hi I knew awake the rapper/ Robert / Bobby Crimo. We used to make music together around 2015-2018. He’s not antifa, he’s not some maga overlord. I know that s*** sounds really interesting. But it’s not the truth. He was an isolated stoner who completely lost touch with reality.”
Completely lost touch with reality.
On a Reddit message board, one user remarked: “I literally have a song with this guy, what the f***.” Another user asked: “Did he seem off to you at all when you were working with him?” The first user responded: “He just seemed like a typical stoner kind of guy at the time.”
A typical stoner kind of guy.
Marijuana is a dangerous drug. Cannabis can cause psychosis, violence, and addiction and can lead to opioid use and abuse. Scoff all you want. Many people smoke marijuana and aren’t mass shooters. That’s obvious. But the serious risk of psychosis and violence triggered by marijuana is also obvious if you look at the scientific data. So why are we ignoring it, particularly in the face of a mass shooter whose acquaintances identify his defining characteristic as being a stoner?
Teenagers who use cannabis by age 15 are more than four times as likely to suffer from schizophrenia compared to their peers who do not use cannabis. Even taking into account children who had previous symptoms of psychosis, teenagers who use cannabis are still three times as likely to develop schizophrenia as those who don’t use cannabis. According to NAM: “The association between cannabis use & development of psychotic disorder is supported. … The magnitude of this association is moderate to large and appears to be dose-dependent.”
Remember, smoking marijuana in 2022 isn’t the same thing as smoking it in the 1970s. The amount of THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis, is five to 10 times higher in concentration now compared to just 20 years ago. Marijuana-induced psychosis also leads to violence. This is well documented. The Journal of American Psychiatry found “a moderate association between cannabis use and physical violence, which remained significant regardless of study design and adjustment for confounding factors (i.e., socioeconomic factors, other substance use). Cannabis use in this population is a risk factor for violence.”
In a study of convicted murderers, one-third had used marijuana 24 hours before committing homicide. In another study, regular use of marijuana during adolescence was the most predictive indicator of intimate partner violence. Our nation is suffering a crisis of mental illness. Suicide rates during COVID lockdowns have spiked. One in 6 American adults report taking psychiatric drugs. A spate of mass shooters has ravaged our communities, committed by twisted individuals with red flags waving for all the world to see.
One of those red flags is marijuana use. Ask any doctor: Patients with depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia … many have a history with marijuana.
Does marijuana trigger psychosis and violence in people already suffering from mental illness? Is heavy use of cannabis a contributing factor to the mental breakdown of the mass shooters who massacre our families and friends and neighbors? The studies strongly demonstrate this correlation, and sadly, so does Bobby Crimo III, a “typical stoner kind of guy” who “lost touch with reality” before he turned into a mass murderer.
Ratio me all you want. But after you post your rage comments, read the studies on the correlation between cannabis, psychosis, and violence. Then, ask yourself, why do the medical industry, politicians, and many in the media hide the danger of marijuana?
Liz Wheeler hosts The Liz Wheeler Show, a popular conservative podcast.
