Washington Post blogger’s reefer madness over Pentagon shooter

I have a sig line on my email I acquired from somebody somewhere that reads:

The amazing thing about marijuana is its ability to addle the brains of people who don’t smoke it.

A perfect example of this is Washington Post blogger Charles Lane.  I’ve covered Lane before in the story “Washington Post opinion article on medical marijuana is an insult to our intelligence” back in October.  Lane’s preconceived notions and opposition to medical marijuana are well known, so it is no surprise that Lane would rush to his word processor when the news surfaced that John Patrick Bedell, the so-called “Pentagon shooter”, was a medical marijuana user.

But in his rush to condemn medical marijuana, Lane takes complete leave of all common sense and logic.  For example, he writes in the beginning of his post:

It might have been avoided if Bedell had received timely and effective treatment for his obviously serious mental illness. The fact that he did not is a cause for soul-searching by all of us. Advocates of “medical marijuana” should be especially chastened. As I have insisted previously on this blog, 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.

Then follows that in the closing with this:

Let’s debate legalizing marijuana as a recreational drug. If smoking pot makes terminally ill AIDS and cancer patients feel better, give it to them.

But, for the most part, “medical marijuana” is a pseudo-scientific myth, and a dangerous one at that.

So Lane thinks medical marijuana is a prescription for disaster, but is willing to debate full legalization?  Would Bedell have been better served seeing a doctor for his cannabis acquisition than a clerk at a legal pot store, or not?  He thinks it will make terminal AIDS and cancer patients feel better, but it’s a spurious “medicine”?  And what about those doctors in the American Medical Association who declared last year that smoked cannabis is medically effective… are they spreading a “dangerous pseudo-scientific myth”?

In the middle of the piece we get gems like these:

Back in December 2006, Bedell went to see a San Francisco physician, R. Stephen Ellis, complaining of chronic insomnia. As any doctor worth his salt will tell you, this symptom often reflects an underlying physical or mental condition, including depression, bipolar disorder or even schizophrenia.

So proper care for chronic insomnia requires careful screening for, and appropriate treatment of, these ailments. “It would be incomplete treatment to give someone a sleeping pill and send him on his way,” [a Wisconsin doctor who specializes in sleep disorders] told me.

Yes, and chronic insomnia is, like you said, possibly indicating physical and mental conditions other than depression, bipolar, and schizophrenia.  Could be chronic pain, sleep apnea, or restless leg syndrome.  Hindsight is 20/20, Charles.  Furthermore, someone seeking relief from insomnia could have gotten all manner of prescriptions that have side effects like:

Lunesta: Tell your doctor immediately if any of these unlikely but serious side effects occur: mental/mood changes (e.g., worsening depression, hallucinations, agitation, or rare thoughts of suicide), memory problems, loss of coordination, signs of infection (e.g., fever, chills, persistent sore throat).

Rozerem: Tell your doctor immediately if any of these rare but very serious side effects occur: mental/mood changes (e.g., depression, strange thoughts, thoughts of suicide).

Sonata: Tell your doctor immediately if any of these unlikely but serious side effects occur: mental/mood changes (e.g., agitation, seeing/hearing things that are not there, rare thoughts of suicide), unusual behavior.

Now if it had been revealed that Bedell had been using these drugs prior to the suicide mission to the Pentagon, do you think Charles Lane would be writing 500 words on the dangers of these potent prescription insomnia drugs?  I doubt it.

To take the actions of one violent mentally ill man gone berserk and declare that as a reason to eliminate medical marijuana is as spurious a conclusion as blaming Christianity for Timothy McVeigh’s Oklahoma City bombing or Islam for Maj. Hasan’s Fort Hood shooting spree.