Peter Hitchens
As I always do,
when I hear of rampage shootings such as that in Ottawa on Wednesday, I
wondered how long it would be before the shooter turned out to have been taking
some sort of mind-altering drug.
This is almost invariably the case in such events.
As the authorities and mainstream media are never interested in this aspect of these killings (if they were, they’d have to do something about it), it can take a while, and sometimes some digging on my part.
No such effort was needed today.
Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, as he called himself after changing his name, twice came up against the law on marijuana charges. See here.
He must have been pretty persistent to have this experience, given the reluctance of modern police forces to bother with this drug unless it is smoked under their noses, and not always then.
Nothing of any significance happened to him as a result, of course, despite the alleged draconian ‘War on Drugs’ under whose brutal dictates we supposedly groan.
Though not ill enough to be detained (since the Western world shut its mental hospitals by the dozen, preferring the neglect known as ‘care in the community’ this is nowadays a very high bar, and few are), his behaviour was clearly ‘erratic’, and the mosque he chose to attend didn’t seem very keen on him.
But I suspect a great deal will be made of his Islamic conversion, and nothing at all of his drug-induced, er, instability.
The same was true of the killers of Drummer Lee Rigby, whose ‘erratic’ behaviour during their crime and afterwards has barely been mentioned.
It is my opinion that fanaticism cannot be prevented in any free society, but that drugtaking can be.
Thus, if we wish to see fewer such horrors, we should worry more about drugs than about fanaticism.
I am accused of trying to excuse these people by mentioning this. I’m not.
Those who deliberately take mindbending drugs are in my view responsible for the crimes they commit as a result.
I’m also accused of trying to minimise the influence of Islam. I’m not. I do not wish this to become an Islamic country.
I just think we should be more aware of the grave dangers of living in a country where the state only pretends to enforce laws against dangerous drugs.
There are quite a few such countries.
This is almost invariably the case in such events.
As the authorities and mainstream media are never interested in this aspect of these killings (if they were, they’d have to do something about it), it can take a while, and sometimes some digging on my part.
No such effort was needed today.
Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, as he called himself after changing his name, twice came up against the law on marijuana charges. See here.
He must have been pretty persistent to have this experience, given the reluctance of modern police forces to bother with this drug unless it is smoked under their noses, and not always then.
Nothing of any significance happened to him as a result, of course, despite the alleged draconian ‘War on Drugs’ under whose brutal dictates we supposedly groan.
Though not ill enough to be detained (since the Western world shut its mental hospitals by the dozen, preferring the neglect known as ‘care in the community’ this is nowadays a very high bar, and few are), his behaviour was clearly ‘erratic’, and the mosque he chose to attend didn’t seem very keen on him.
But I suspect a great deal will be made of his Islamic conversion, and nothing at all of his drug-induced, er, instability.
The same was true of the killers of Drummer Lee Rigby, whose ‘erratic’ behaviour during their crime and afterwards has barely been mentioned.
It is my opinion that fanaticism cannot be prevented in any free society, but that drugtaking can be.
Thus, if we wish to see fewer such horrors, we should worry more about drugs than about fanaticism.
I am accused of trying to excuse these people by mentioning this. I’m not.
Those who deliberately take mindbending drugs are in my view responsible for the crimes they commit as a result.
I’m also accused of trying to minimise the influence of Islam. I’m not. I do not wish this to become an Islamic country.
I just think we should be more aware of the grave dangers of living in a country where the state only pretends to enforce laws against dangerous drugs.
There are quite a few such countries.
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