Face eating naked psycho (NOT) on Bath Salts

[Calamity Jane]

Does it disturb anyone as much as it disturbs me to find out that guy in FL who chewed that poor homeless man's face off was NOT on anything but pot? The autopsy revealed no other substances. He apparently had no history of violence or mental issues. Of course, he's dead, so we'll never really know what was the real catalyst for that incomprehensible savagery.

Somehow, that act seems much more conveniently "explainable" if bath salts were involved. If someone with only pot in his system could do such a thing, what does that say about society, about human nature and about our false sense of control?

 

[Nancy]

Yes it does. I almost posted this in the substance abuse forum today. I want to refer anyone who says pot is not bad or dangerous to this article.

Nancy

 

[InsaneCdn]

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not pro-pot (other than allowance for medicinal use).
But... just because the guy didn't have anything else in his system, doesn't mean something else wasn't at the root.
For example... meth eats brains, and the damage is permanent. Forensic lab work is not going to detect this if his use was in the past.

 

[TerryJ2]

I'm not a dr, but I think he had something else going on. Pot mixed with-anything from an actual substance, to previous brain damage can cause psychosis.

Where did the info come from on this guy? How reliable is the source?

 

[DammitJanet]

Pot didnt cause this dude to go out and eat some guys face. No way in hell. how long after he did the face eating was his blood actually tested and which lab and was it done twice to make sure that there wasnt a lab error. His urine would have tested positive for thc but nothing else so they would have had to also do a blood test for the other and we dont know the half life of it. If it was kept in the wrong conditions or for too much time before it was tested, it could have messed up the test.

Sorry, I will never believe that a perfectly normal person smoked a bit of pot and then went psychotic. perfectly normal people get mellow.

 

[Hound dog]

I must not be normal. I don't get "mellow". I don't get anything. For me, it's like smoking an icky cigarette. Which is why it got tried once, and I was done. I didn't see the appeal.

But I'm with you Janet, no way a perfectly "normal" person smoked a joint and then went and ate a guy's face for no reason. Either that joint was laced with something nasty, (did they even check for that??) or he had some other history going on.

Actually, I think it disturbs me more than this guy did it and it wasn't bath salts.

 

[Calamity Jane]

I don't think the pot made him do it, I'm just saying how can someone who is NOT on any LSD or bath salts type substance with no known background of mental illness or drug use, go so crazy that he does this?? It's like, to me, you can't be OK one day, even a LITTLE crazy, fly under the radar, never get in trouble with the law, and then go ahead and do this! There's got to be more to the story, and maybe it'll come out. He was like a zombie or a vicious rabid animal, not like a person. The bath salts would have explained it, but now there's no real explanation. How horrible.

 

[Nancy]

So then do you think that if he had not done the pot he would not have done this? Or do you think that the pot, either laced with something or mixed with his faulty brain chemistry caused him to do it? They claim they tested for everything that they know about that could have been laced with it including spice and nothing. He had a history of pot smoking for a long time. I don't think pot would necessarily take a person who had nothing else wrong with them and turn them into a pyschotic but I do think it can take a person who is not all there for whatever reason and have disasterous results. And who knows what people walking around have going on in their heads...or what other medications/drug they could have taken that mixed with the pot causes this.

All I know is that we had many violent episodes in our house after difficult child came home from smoking pot all day with her friends. At times she looked like the devil possessed.

Nancy

 

[AnnieO]

I agree that there is more to it.

THAT SAID...

Pot now isn't the same pot I smoked a couple of times in HS (age 14). THAT stuff gave me a headache and red eyes. I tried it again at age 20. Headache, red eyes, paranoia. Age 30 - giggly, headache, red eyes, paranoia. Just wasn't worth it to me, I can have a MUCH better time on too much caffeine.

I honestly, seriously think it all goes back to mental illness. I've seen wayyyyyyy too much stuff. Drugs exacerbate the problem - ANY DRUGS, including Rx. I mean, how many of our kids have gone into horrible rages on ADHD stims, developed tics on APs, become aggressive on ADs... The list is endless. Just because there was THC in his system means NOTHING.

And... If carbon monoxide kills brain cells (and it does), and there were just a few left holding the guy together, and he smoked ANYTHING or even breathed in auto exhaust...

 

[hearts and roses]

I agree, I think it has more to do with mental illness of some kind, *possibly* triggered by the pot. Pot alone, imvho, may cause extreme mood changes...but to EAT someone's face off? Ummm, I don't think so.

 

[Calamity Jane]

Nancy, I've also seen my son enraged and delusional in my opinion, and would have bet the farm he was on acid or something, and we've tested him on the spot and it only came up positive for THC. But that guy in FL stripped naked, flug himself around a light pole, had superhuman strength to chew someone's face off, was warned by the police to stop, but didn't, and had to be shot to death. She may be covering up for something, but his fiancee said he was quiet, religious, never in any trouble. I am sure that's true in HER perspective, but this guy must've been totally messed up. I'll bet they're getting ready to sue the police for excessive force.

The bath salts would have tied it up into a neat package, like you see on Law and Order, or CSI. This is just whacked out. I remember when I used to take the NYC subway to work in the late '70's, early '80's and it was like crazy town. There was just no describing it, and it was like being on a tour of Vietnam every day for 45 min. each way. I fully expected, and would not have been surprised if someone threw a live grenade in the subway car just because they could. If you didn't get PTSD from that, you wouldn't get it from anything. There were so many mental patients roaming around, you were assaulted by "entertainers" on the cars who would shake you down for money, hare krishnas, angry radical "religious" nuts, 3-card monte sharks, gold snatchers, people who would push people in front of oncoming trains, etc.!

But this guy in FL? How does a human being become so radically deranged, seemingly overnight? There's got to be more to the story. Otherwise, my faith in mankind is lost!

 

[Nancy]

It's very scarey indeed. There truly are a lot of mentally ill people walking around and any drug added to that mix could be disasterous. The fact that pot was found in his system I can't believe it was not a factor, certainly not the only one but then it's playing russian roulette isn't it?

Nancy

 

[Hound dog]

I've been thinking on this quite a bit.

You know, it seems that people are really in to putting odd things into their bodies to attempt to get "high", or kill themselves, whichever comes first. It's just as possible.....this is a new thing that police / forensics hasn't come across yet. Police work isn't all CSI and NCIS, police depts do NOT have those resources, most of them don't anyway. They have some, but most just aren't that sophisticated. Know what I mean?? I have a feeling this is a case of police lab didn't know what they were looking for, so they didn't find the cause.

This is going to sound weird, but I wonder if they checked him for parasites. There are some parasites out there that target brain cells and alter behavior. And lately we have a lot of "alien" species invading the country.

I'm guessing they checked for laced pot (chemicals they normally see) and other drugs, along with the bath salt chemicals and that was it. So even if it was some other "new" type of concoction they've dreamed up to get high.....they could've missed it. They don't look for parasites unless they have reason to do so either. Nor would it show up on a normal autopsy.

 

[donna723]

As a "child of the 60's" who hung around with a bunch of musicians and was around and indulged in quite a bit of pot smoking back in the day, I have to agree that there is NO WAY this guy would have done this just as a result of smoking pot! Nobody ever did anything except become very mellow, laid back, giggley, and get the munchies! Oh, the stories I could tell - I may write a book! But I can't even imagine anyone becoming violent as a result of smoking pot! Of course, back then, it was very pure. It was either home grown or imported from Mexico or Hawaii (the best stuff).

But now it's a different story. Most of it has been adultrated with all kinds of unknown and weird substances - Lord only knows what's in there now! And from working in a prison for 24 years, I know about drug tests. There is no magic all-inclusive drug test that will show every substance that is in the sample. They have to test for specific substances and there could be any one of thousands of substances in the sample but if the test is not designed to detect that particular substance, it will go undetected.

Also from working in a prison, I know of one thing that could potentially have those affects on someone, including extreme violence, great strength and oblivion to pain. There are others - this is just one. Our institution was in a very rural area surrounded by woods and we had inmate work crews (trustees) who would go off unsupervised and cut down trees that were cut up and sold for firewood. There is a plant, jimsom weed (I think I spelled that right), that grows wild in the woods and if they found some, occasionally one of them would be dumb enough to try it. It could be smoked (dried, it would be very easy to mix with pot) or some of them would just eat it. They would just go completely nuts on this stuff, some had complete psychotic breaks, extreme violence, seemingly superhuman strength, and a complete oblivion to pain! These guys could be very dangerous to try to contain and even a taser didn't phase them! Of course our staff had seen it before and knew the affects of it when they saw them. But on a drug test, if the test wasn't specifically designed to detect this stuff, it would slip right through. This is just one thing it could be but there's all kinds of things out there that could potentially have this same affect and there is no way to test for all of them.

 

[Calamity Jane]

Very interesting, Hound and Donna. It could be any number of things...it's such a mystery. My ultra paranoid difficult child would probably say it was a government experiment gone awry!

 

[AnnieO]

My ultra paranoid difficult child would probably say it was a government experiment gone awry!

My not so paranoid difficult child has already said so. Even wondered if it could be akin to Agent Orange...

 

[welcometowitsend]

Ok, that is pretty creepy that he tested negative for bath salts. And I don't think it was totally related to the pot either.

That said, I have heard that bath salts can induce schizophrenia that can be permanent whether they are still on bath salts or not. Wonder if that could have anything to do with it?

 

[Kathy813]

My difficult child has told me several times lately that she doesn't smoke pot anymore because it makes her go "crazy." Maybe pot mellows out normal people but has a different effect on people that have mental health issues.

~Kathy

 

[Signorina]

Cannabis can lead to a pyschotic/schizophrenic break - especially when used over a long period of time. But it's still an "which comes first - chicken and egg "

[SUP]9[/SUP]

Based on research reviews, looking at the connection between cannabis and psychosis, two hypotheses have been developed.​

[SUP]10[/SUP]

The first hypothesis is that cannabis use causes psychotic symptoms in an otherwise healthy individual that would not have occurred with abstinence. The second hypothesis is that cannabis use may precipitate psychosis in individuals who are predisposed to acquiring a psychotic disorder.​

[SUP]10,11
[/SUP]

​

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2811144/

 

[CrazyinVA]

I'm still calling it the zombie apocalypse.