Left-wing California politicians have been talking about legalizing and taxing marijuana to save the state from bankruptcy. But thanks to the state’s most notorious pothead, Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell, that vision may now go up in smoke. Bedell’s easy access to “medical marijuana” in California is quickly becoming a scandal that threatens the well-funded movement to increase access to the weed by legalizing it statewide―and perhaps nationwide.
Bedell had a doctor’s approval to get “medical marijuana” in 2006 and was reported by his father to have a “medicinal marijuana card” when he was declared missing in January of this year.
Facing a backlash over reports that Bedell was a psychotic pothead, the illegal-drug lobby is accusing anyone who brings up anything negative about “medical marijuana” of engaging in “reefer madness,” a term once given to chronic marijuana use of the kind that ultimately resulted in Bedell’s downward spiral and death in an exchange of gunfire at the Pentagon.
On top of the Bedell tragedy comes the apparent overdose of actor Corey Haim, who smoked marijuana at the age of 16 before moving on to other drugs, including cocaine, crack, stimulants and Valium.
Before Bedell brought discredit and attention on the “medical marijuana” movement, John Podesta, head of the Center for American Progress (CAP), had actually suggested on ABC News that the taxing and legalization of marijuana on a national basis could be a way to pay for Obama’s health care plan. Podesta is considered to be doing the bidding of billionaire George Soros, the hedge-fund operator who finances CAP and has funneled millions of dollars into the drug legalization movement.
The Bedell case is starting to focus public attention on what has been happening in California, where Bedell got his “medicine” and posted bizarre Internet commentaries about the virtues of dope. Alluding to the refusal of the Obama Administration to use federal resources to combat the growing “medical marijuana” problem, Roger Morgan, the executive director of the Coalition for a Drug-Free California, told AIM that “It is unthinkable that the Commander-In-Chief, whose primary responsibilities are to protect people and our tax dollars, could allow the untenable situation that exists in California today with de facto legalization.”
The report, Organized Crime in California Annual Report 2007-08, prepared by the California Department of Justice, states that, “California is the largest producer of marijuana in the United States and law enforcement agencies believe that Mexican and Asian DTOs [Drug Trafficking Organizations] and white criminal groups are responsible for the majority of marijuana cultivation in California.”
The Bedell case, Morgan said, should serve as a wake-up call. “Since the potential for psychosis is heightened the earlier one starts smoking, the fact that we have more kids smoking pot than tobacco in some places, like San Diego, should give cause for concern to every citizen, particularly parents and politicians,” he said. “Marijuana is a factor in California’s 24.2 percent High School drop-out rate, which costs taxpayers $46.4 billion annually. We can certainly anticipate an increase in physical and mental health problems, as well as traffic accidents, welfare and crime, as more young people start smoking pot because of the contrived perception that it is medicine and legal. In turn, many more will inflict the disease of addiction and psychosis on themselves and society will bear the burden.”
However, after California passed Proposition 215 legalizing medical marijuana in 1996, media celebrities such as Bill Maher, dubbed one of the top ten “celebstoners” by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), began to vigorously promote the weed. “The only thing bad about marijuana is it makes you eat cookie dough,” he joked.
But after Bedell’s shooting rampage, which resulted in two guards being shot and wounded, no one is laughing.
NORML reports, “Maher made pot a big part of his late-night TV talk shows―first on ‘Politically Incorrect’ and now on HBO’s ‘Real Time with Bill Maher.’ Also a stand-up comic, he’s given speeches at NORML and MPP [Marijuana Policy Project] conferences (he’s on their boards) and hosted a NORML benefit concert in Los Angeles in 2004. ‘Real Time’ received a 2006 Stony Award for Best Cable-News Series.”
A “Stony Award” is given by High Times, a magazine that glorifies the drug culture and claims that the “Golden State” is actually “pot paradise” and home to 250,000 residents with “proper state documentation” to obtain “cannabis medicine.”
The January 2010 High Times has an article headlined, “Cannabis Cures Cancer.”
For Bedell, however, the drug was a disaster. Before he showed up at the Pentagon, he was pulled over on February 1 by the Washoe County (Nevada) Sheriff’s Office for erratic driving and a failure to signal when turning, and then busted for unlawful possession of marijuana and driving under the influence of drugs. Bedell told the police he hadn’t smoked dope for weeks but reeked of the weed when ordered out of his car. He had 2.6 ounces of the drug and a pink marijuana pipe.
Even before it was revealed that Bedell had shot two Pentagon guards and was a marijuana addict/psychotic, questions were being raised about how doctors in California were approving access to the drug. The state medical board has investigated a number of doctors for being overly lax in issuing recommendations for the weed.
It turns out one “medical marijuana” card, in the form of a “physician’s statement” from Dr. Roger Stephen Ellis, was issued in 2006, entitling Bedell to access to marijuana for one month. It is not known who provided the marijuana card Bedell’s father said he had earlier this year.
Ellis, known as the “potdoc,” was the subject of an official inquiry in 2002 into how he was practicing medicine. According to a document posted on his own website, the inquiry was closed, on the condition that he would be in compliance with the state statute regarding the care and treatment of patients. Assurances to this effect were made on his behalf by his legal counsel, who told Ellis that he would be “bulletproof” to any complaints as a result
According to the physician’s statement signed by Ellis, Bedell was given access to the dope for “chronic insomnia,” when insomnia can itself be a symptom of marijuana withdrawal.
Charles Lane of the Washington Post writes that “By the time of his appointment with Ellis, Bedell was already exhibiting troubling signs of mental illness, according to recent published interviews with his family and friends. He was also using marijuana excessively. Bedell’s loved ones’ anguish at his death may be compounded now by the knowledge that, at one important moment in his troubled life, a doctor gave him help obtaining more marijuana―as opposed to real help.”
With a marijuana card, people can go to various California “dispensaries,” where they disappear into a back room and return with marijuana of their choosing in brown paper bags. Oaksterdam University, also known as “Cannabis College,” holds classes for “students” on how to grow high-quality marijuana and meet the demand.
Lane is one of the few, perhaps the only, mainstream media reporter willing to publicly take on the notion that smoking crude marijuana somehow has beneficial “medical properties.”
Lane says that “the legalization of physician-recommended pot in California is a prescription for disaster because it authorizes the ‘treatment’ of a wide range of real maladies with a spurious ‘medicine’―marijuana―that might be ineffective or actually harmful.”
Pot advocates are accusing Lane of “reefer madness” and pooh-pooh the notion that marijuana is linked in any way to health problems.
However, journalists who are interested in the truth can witness what happened when British journalist Nicky Taylor decided to experiment with the drug by smoking it on a daily basis. She reported a frightening experience of panic and paranoia. “At one point during her investigation, scientific tests proved that, thanks to the drug, she had developed a level of psychosis well above that seen in individuals with schizophrenia,” a British paper reported.
Some of her experiences in Amsterdam, where marijuana is legal, were captured on video. Taylor, who said she had tried marijuana in college, reported, “This is really disturbing. It’s worse than being blind drunk. I’m scared. I seem to have worked myself into a bit of a panic attack and I don’t know why.”
Later, she said, “I have to say that was the worst day ever, ever, ever of my whole life. Inside I was absolutely petrified. At one point I was even too scared to get out of the chair. It was like a massive, massive panic attack. I got this stupid feeling that it sort of unlocked some sort of paranoia in my head and forever I am going to be paranoid.”
In this context, it makes complete sense that John Patrick Bedell believed that the government was out to take his rights away, including his right to smoke pot. His marijuana use fueled his paranoia and made him susceptible to accepting other bizarre conspiracy theories, such as the 9/11 “inside job” nonsense made popular by such figures as radio show host Alex Jones and CAP senior fellow Van Jones.
[...] The Pentagon shooter and 'medical marijuana' Pentagon shooter pot scandal grows | SmallGovTimes.comVoices and Choices Pentagon shooter pot scandal grows By Cliff Kincaid ⋅ March 11, 2010 [...]
Cliff,
I hope you’re not a journalist. This is a seriously one-sided piece of claptrap. So, one guy with obvious mental problems happens to smoke weed, and now he went on a shooting rampage because of cannabis?
Come on, you can do better than than, can’t you?
Then you quote Roger Mogan, who spins the conclusion of a widely-publicized study about cannabis and psychosis. Here’s some stats 101: correlation does not equal causation. This is the problem when people who do not understand science and statistics try to use them.
The doctor certainly should have referred him to a mental health professional. He has acted in a negligent manner. End of story.
Stop trying to make something out of nothing to further your obvious anti-cannabis agenda.
- CC
Gotta love how Cliff “Kincaid” posts this on a small government website, railing against probably the single biggest waste of resources and single best policy change (legalization) that would return government to the size it should be. What a hypocrite! Not only that, but his reasoning and facts are so skewed it’s incredible that anyone publishes this drivel.
“It’s worse than being blind drunk”
…right about there, Cliff, is where you lost your credibility.
Cannabis is everywhere. Yes, even at my corner convenience store. Cops get one seller and another takes his place. Over and over and over… Nothing changes except the faces.
… (Border Patrol) Agent Mario Escalante, “We’re looking at the month of March (last year), just averaging over 4400 pounds of marijuana a day.”
http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=10153956&nav=14RT
2.2 TONS each and every day!!! That’s from ONE border patrol sector. ONE! Over two tons confiscated every day and they claim that they only get 5 to 10 percent coming through. Cannabis isn’t going anywhere. It’s either an above ground business or it’s distributed by criminal gangs. Geez, trying to control a controlled substance.
The punishment for possession has gotten out of hand. Once arrested you are forced out of the job market, school, and, potentially, your house and bank account (legal or not). A recent court case in Tyler, Texas had a man sentenced to 99 years for 4 ounces. I guess you want to be another Daryl Gates who testified at a Congressional hearing that all casual users should be shot. Is that what you want??? What is next? Public hangings similar to Iran, Indonesia, Cambodia? Public executions like China. That isn’t smaller government. That’s a smaller population and it’s known as eugenics!
Here’s a question for you. Prohibitionists never answer this one. But lets try anyway. Don’t change the premise. Answer it straight up.
What do you want to happen to your teen or young adult you know when they are arrested for a joint in their pocket?
There are so many things terribly wrong with the information in this article that its not even funny.
I haven’t seen such a disgusting display of propaganda in a while. Your name might as well be Comstock or Anslinger.
Absolute trash. Cliff, you should be ashamed of yourself, using your writing for such evil. Marijuana hurts no one. It is not even addictive (and yet you use the term pot addict), unlike the cancerous poison that the government taxes and sells to its people. You are using it as a scape goat for so many problems.. violence, drop-outs, harder drugs.. without taking into account what really cause these problems: the fact that something so harmless is illegal. And yet our nation embraces alcohol which is proven to cause many diseases and lead to substantially more deaths. It would seem much more plausible that Bedell was drunk rather than high during the shootings, as alcohol is the drug that is ACTUALLY proven to lead to aggression, poor decision making, downward spirals and death.
I’m guessing Cliff wouldn’t like it if someone suggested banning guns because this fruitcake shooter actually used ummm you know, a gun.
WIC -
Good point.
I’ll bet Cliff wouldn’t like it if someone suggested banning religion every time someone went on a killing spree because they heard “The devil telling them to do it.”
Ahh, scapegoats. Such a wonderful shortcut to thinking.
- CC
And when did correlation ever equal causation? Never. The guy ate cheeseburgers, too, so people might as well say that cheeseburgers caused him to do what he did.
The truth of the matter is: People who have mental problems or otherwise crappy lives are drawn to drugs BECAUSE OF THEIR PRE-EXISTING CRAPPY SITUATION. So saying that a person went crazy and killed a bunch of people with a knife is like saying that all knives ought to be illegal because someone might use one to kill someone.
All a bunch of semantic BS. It’s time for people to wake the hell up. We need to end prohibition. The war on drugs is a lie and is ruining this country. Plain and simple. Get a clue.
SHAME ON “SMALLGOVTIMES.COM” FOR POSTING THIS PROPAGANDIST TRIPE. BOYCOTT THIS SITE.
Cliff, the Devil has a nice place in Hell just for you. Hope you enjoy it.
“At one point during her investigation, scientific tests proved that, thanks to the drug, she had developed a level of psychosis well above that seen in individuals with schizophrenia,” a British paper reported.”
Okay, let me just tell you, that is load of hooey. I’ve conducted over 1000 in-patient and out-patient psychological evaluations during my career as a psychologist. I teach testing and assessment to PhD clinical psychology students and assessment and evaluation to psychiatry residents. There isn’t any instrument that measures degree of schizophrenia.
Symptom pictures vary and when an individual is in throes of psychotic decompensation, the idea that there is some level of psychosis worse than that is only believable to someone who has no experience working with psychotic patients. What is worse, exactly, than florid hallucinations, violent agitation or catatonic stupor? What imaginary scientific measurement was employed with this woman?
There aren’t deeper states of psychosis.
This claim makes me question the validity of the source altogether.
I wonder if there is a correlation between cannibalism and Alcohol. According to media reports Jeffery Daumier drank while enjoying his late night snacks.
[...] Cliff Kincaid, SmallGovTimes.com does this slow the mari-med momentum? Left-wing California politicians have been talking about legalizing and taxing marijuana to save [...]
People, Prohibition of marijuana is about to end. This is the rambling of a sad desperate man willing to sling whatever slime and garbage he can. We know prohibition is a failure, we know the laws are unjust, the time is now to STAND UP and DEMAND common sense to prevail. Support Legalization 2010.
its amazing how one incident is cited for all of the medical marijuana community…what a crock! Cliff if you are actually a “real” journalist, you need to take into account all the “alcohol” deaths, diseases, aggressiveness, poisoning of the liver, etc. that this “addictive” drug causes….marijuana is NOT addictive…I believe that you are a one-sided person, who as a journalist, needs to make ammendments to your war on pot. Do you really think people are that stupid to jump on your bandwagon just because of this one individual? Look up the statistics buddy between alcohol and marijuana. Also, lookup the statistics with guns. You know the old saying, don’t make a molehill out of an anthill? Well, that’s what your doing with your so-called article…it stinks! There are so many people out there in need of medical marijuana and it angers me that if you have not been in that person’s shoes, then keep your damn mouth shut, because if you have no compassion for your fellow humans who need this, then guess what – your comments are NOT welcome in my book.
Did you also know that Ted Bundy tried a cup of coffee at 12? Caffeine the ultimate Gateway drug.
Adolph Hitler, drank one beer at 17, and killed all those people. So is that his gateway drug?
Your cause and effect is faulty. Unfortunately there are people who will believe you, but aren’t you ashamed typing so many lies when you know that others may see logic in the illogical?
1. I don’t smoke marijuana, never tried it. I think some of the comments here are a bit unfair. It is not claimed that the man in question ‘smoked once’ and became paranoid, he was a pothead, and if you smoke a lot of weed, you can develop schizophrenia/paranoia, especially if you are smoking something rather strong. Even users joke about it.
2. The most ridiculous thing here is claiming pot made him susceptible to “ridiculous conspiracy theories”. Yes, potheads and schizos are attracted to conspiracy theories that they are never capable of understanding. However, *you* have to be mentally challenged somehow to think that 9/11 was pulled off ingeniously by a CIA asset living in a cave on the other side of the world with a bunch of mainly degenerates and incompetents hijacking planes and flying them like pros. Perhaps you have not looked into the evidence in a proper academic/scholastic sense? Maybe you think it is ‘ridiculous’ to say any big event is an ‘inside job’, but you should look at what most people are actually saying (which is not that Bush planned it for himself, more typically, one considers it an operation of a wing of the intell community). You must compare the plausibility of this hypothesis to the plausbility of the “official” story, which was virtually announced within hours of the attack, without investigation (now, THAT was sketchy!).
You might find then that the most paranoid in our society are the hordes of old folks watching Fox News who actually think Muslims are encircling America waiting for the chance to set off a tactical nuke.
Thomas, there is no credible studies that show cannabis causes schizophrenia or psychosis no matter the amount or strength of the cannabis your using. Also statistically speaking if smoking cannabis increased your chances of developing schizophrenia/psychosis by two fold then why have the statistics of patients with schiozphrenia/psychosis not went up over the last few decades to account for the huge boom in the number of cannabis smokers? Over 50% of the US has ADMITTED to at least trying cannabis, how many have not admitted to it? Why hasn’t the number of people afflicted with schiozprenia/psychosis not increased then from the increase in cannabis use?
2. Thank you for acknowledging the possibility that our government could have been responsible for 9/11. For those who do not believe our government is capable of such a thing google “Operation Northwoods” and read about the plans the government made in the 60s to conduct terrorist attacks on american military and civilian personel/building then blame those attacks on cuba through falsifying evidence and proganda spread by the media so that the US could attack cuba with all their military might. Read those unclassified documents and tell me our government isn’t capable of 9/11.
It was the psychosis, not the marijuana, that brought about the shootings. The vast majority of marijuana users generally settle in for a quiet evening with the TV, some snacks, and a nap. Not exactly a threat to society.
It’s time to allow ordinary Americans to grow a little marijuana in their own back yards (maybe a $100 permit for a dozen plants).
It would rip the guts out of the drug cartels’ pocketbook and free up our tax dollars for education, repairing our bridges, fighting terrorism, and a hundred other worthy goals.
Does anybody really think that locking up marijuana users, or even people who grow a few plants for themselves… Does anybody _really_ think locking those people up is a good use of our tax dollars?
I agree with most of the commenters here. I’d rather have my kids smoking a joint than getting “blind drunk” on alcohol. My son-in-law is a police officer and supports the legalization of marijuana. He says he has better (more important) things to do than arrest people for smoking a joint. His only caveat: don’t drive under the influence (of anything actually). He has to clean up too many messes created by intoxicated drivers, under the influence of all types of substances.
By now, it should be obvious that Cliff Kincaid is a jerk and a very ignorant jerk. This guy should be excommunicated from the human race, period.
Talk about making huge irrational leaps that border on psychotic ramblings themselves, this article lays no foundation whatsoever for the proposal that this one persons mental illness or the shootings had anything to do with medical marijuana. They really need to start teaching logic in school.
There is no proven correlation between smoking Marijuana and committing crimes. This article is on the same level as the movie “Reefer madness” from the fifty’s. Amusing at best.
Not even good yellow journalism. You left out the part where you quote Nixon blaming the Jews and the Blacks for marijuana’s ills.
Go get ‘em Kinkaid. Compelling, really.
btw, this site sucks
Cliff along with Gil are merely ideological liars. They should be tried and shot for perpetually lieing to the American people IMHO.
Yeah whomever wrote this is so vastly mis-informed .
Cannabis has nothing to do with conspiracy theories the way he wants to imply .
You must realize that with alcohol which is legal, murders rapes assaults family troubles and bodily harm are a reality every day .
This story has been mostly forgotten about already in any case and so be it .
You forgot to mention that pot turns you gay and makes you kill Ugandans. It happened to me! Also, being a member of the tea bag party is a gateway drug to harder things like picking up men in airport bathrooms. It leads to intense tea bagging sessions and once the balls are wet, the rest is history.
It’s funny to find this article, obviously against marijuana and in support of it’s illegality, on a site for “libertarian news.” Isn’t libertarianism founded on the idea of individual rights?