Reefer Madness: Marijuana use prompted psychotic attack
TheStar.com | GTA | Marijuana use prompted attack, trial toldA man who has admitted killing his stripper girlfriend was suffering from a “major mental illness” at the time of the deadly beating, a forensic psychiatrist has told the jury at a murder trial in Brampton.
Dr. Stephen Hucker said it was “highly likely” Ryan Bucknor was in a “psychotic state” when be brutally beat Audrey Cote to death, and then ran down the street stark naked, throwing money to people, and later telling police he was “God.”
Although Hucker believed Bucknor was “completely normal” when he interviewed him two years later, he was convinced the accused man was suffering from a mental illness when he killed his girlfriend on July 31, 2005.
Huckner, the first witness called by defence attorney Aston Hall, also believed Bucknor’s mental illness had been induced by chronic marijuana use.
Hucker also told the court he didn’t think Bucknor’s mental illness was “an act” because he wasn’t sophisticated enough to pretend to be delusional or schizophrenic.
Bucknor was a daily user of marijuana. Hucker said studies have determined that frequent users of cannabis have double the risk of developing mental illness or schizophrenia.
Apparently Dr. Hucker doesn’t keep up on his marijuana studies. According to Schizophrenia Research, in a study published last May:
London, United Kingdom: Marijuana use is not associated with heightened symptoms of schizophrenia, according to data to be published in the journal Schizophrenia Research.
Investigators at London’s Institute of Psychiatry assessed whether the prior use of cannabis in patients with schizophrenia was associated with appreciable changes in schizophrenic symptoms compared with patients who had no history of marijuana use.
Investigators reported no statistically significant “differences in syptomatology between schizophrenic patients who were or were not cannabis users” after controlling for patients’ age, sex, and ethnicity.
Researchers also failed to find “any evidence that cannabis users with schizophrenia were more likely to have a family member with the disorder.”
These findings “argue against a distinct schizophrenic-like psychosis caused by cannabis,” authors concluded.
Bucknor may indeed be mentally ill — seems pretty obvious he was — but his marijuana use was probably in response to his illness, not the cause of his illness. If you had voices in your head screaming at you that your girlfriend is a demon and you need to brutally kill her and run down the street naked, you might just try to quiet that voice with a little weed.
Tags: schizophrenia
