Death by marijuana

At Accuracy in Media Cliff Kincaid reports that a supposed hate crime turns out to be death by marijuana.

So marijuana is harmless and doesn’t kill people? Consider the case of black Muslim teenager Hamza Warsame, who took a toke and plunged to his death. His friends from the hood blamed it on a non-existent white man who allegedly pushed the kid to his death.

The headline in last December’s New York Times story was certainly ominous: “Assertions of Hate Crime in Seattle After a Somali-American Teenager Falls to His Death.” The paper said, “The death of the boy, Hamza Warsame, has prompted outrage among members of the Muslim community here, amid assertions—it is not clear from whom—that he was beaten and pushed to his death by a white man.”

Notice how a “white man” was blamed, despite the complete lack of evidence. Where did the allegations come from? The Times seemed not to know.

We now know that the black Muslim teen, a student at Seattle Central College, died from a fall after smoking dope for the first time. In fact, “relatively high levels” of tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive constituent in marijuana, were found in Warsame’s system, The Seattle Times reported. It said that after smoking the legal dope on a smoking device called a bong, the teen “started talking in agitation about his religion and how he might have put himself in bad standing,” and then said he “needed air.” The Muslim youth “opened the door and was off the balcony before his schoolmate could react,” a report found.

…It is not unusual for marijuana to incite mental illness in those who use it. In Colorado, where dope is also legal, husband and father Richard Kirk began hallucinating after eating marijuana candy, and shot and killed his wife. A lawsuit on behalf of her three sons says the marijuana industry packaged and sold a product that produced hallucinations and other psychotic behaviors but did not tell consumers about the potential dangers.

Read more here.