Terence McKenna, psychedelic philosopher extraordinaire, is credited with saying, “Drugs induce paranoia and psychosis in people who have never taken any.” Count regulators, legislators, law enforcement and the media among the paranoid as well. Thankfully, common sense and evidence-based thinking are starting to make inroads in the ongoing war on drugs, but this past week had a couple of doozies in the “are you really serious department.
First was this article, Is There a Link Between Marijuana and Jihad? essentially making the argument that marijuana causes islamists to bomb people and chop off heads. The proof: some murderous jihadists may have smoked pot. Seems the writer is unable to grasp the meaning of causation. By his reasoning, shoes cause jihad because virtually all jihadists (certainly more than smoke pot) wear shoes. Wait a second, do shoes cause jihad?
Then came a screed by Patrick Kennedy, arguing that big canna is going to sweep in and addict all of our children. We suggest you read this well-reasoned piece as your antidote.
Lastly, there were far too many articles in far too many places warning parents to beware of pot smokers giving kids candy laced with their best stuff on Halloween. Really? And why would anyone do that? Near as we can tell that has never happened.
