High and Violent

One contributor recently wondered whether violent acts committed by cannabis users were committed while they were actually high on the drug. I made a brief and necessarily limited search through the electronic newspaper files, using the search terms "High on Cannabis" and "Killed" .

This produced a striking number of road deaths in which the driver behaved homicidally while under the influence of the drug. But these were by no means the only instances.

Here, for those who have swallowed the idea that cannabis is a peaceable drug, is a selection. I have included some road deaths as they occur so frequently. In some, but by no means all of these cases, cannabis has been taken together with alcohol. This is not, I believe, uncommon among cannabis users and it must remain a matter of speculation which of the two drugs had the greater influence, or whether it was the combination.  There are also cases, which I have for the most part set aside, of killings by mentally ill people who have been taking cannabis.  It is not possible to say whetehr they were ill in the first place because of cannabis, or whether it has made their problems worse( andf I have no doubt there will be people here who will believe that cannabis is in some way a 'treatment' for their  problems):

12/7/11

A SPEEDING driver has been jailed after admitting he was high on cannabis when he ran over and killed a teenage girl.

Landscape gardener John Page, 35, was driving a borrowed car at up to 43mph in a 30mph area in New Addington, Croydon, on June 26 last year.

Lillian Groves, 14, who was playing in her front garden with her little brother, had stepped into the road to retrieve a ball when Page knocked her over.

Croydon crown court heard how Page had smoked half a cannabis joint and was "showing off" to niece Elizabeth Page and friend Gavin Timms in the car.

Judge Stephen Waller said: "There is no sentence I can pass which is going to reduce the family's pain."

Page admitted causing death by careless driving and driving without insurance. He was jailed for eight months and banned from the roads for two years.

 

7/11/ 98

BROTHER and sister were behind bars last night for their part in the gang killing of a total stranger who was crippled with arthritis.

Injuries inflicted on 42-year-old Gary Harper were so severe that his family were unable to recognise him.

Some of his attackers, 'three who looked like children', had been high on cannabis and Buckfast wine, the High Court in Glasgow was told.

 

16/12/2000

ALMOST one in five people killed in road crashes is under the influence of drugs, Government figures have revealed

 

17/01/2001

High on cannabis, [Mitchell] Quy strangled his wife during one of their many blazing rows, gripping her by the neck for 20 minutes.

Then, police believe, he carried out a 'ritualistic' stabbing of the body. He hid Mrs Quy's mutilated corpse for five days in the loft.

 

14/07/2002

15 minutes after leaving his family home in the Cotswolds, Jamie Waters was dead - killed in a head-on collision with a BMW driven by a man who was high on cannabis.

 

9/10/2006

A SOLDIER who killed a teacher in a cannabis-induced frenzy will be jailed today.

Lance Corporal Laurie Draper, 31, hacked his best friend's father to death with a pair of garden shears after smoking the drug.

Medical tests found he was suffering from " cannabis induced delusions" when he attacked 53-year-old Paul Butterworth.

It had been a "nice friendly evening" until Draper smoked a joint after dinner.

 

11/11/2006

Tom Grant, 19, was killed by a knife-wielding maniac as he travelled home from St Andrews University to see his parents.

Yesterday, Thomas Wood, 22, pleaded guilty to murdering him while high on cannabis.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment and the judge recommended that he serve at least 21 years.

But the court heard that Wood – who had 21 previous convictions, including one for carrying a knife in public – had been released on licence after serving only half of a six- month sentence for burglary offences.

The Mail has also learned that toxicology tests on Wood after the murder showed he was high on cannabis.

 

7/03/2007

Lee Firman, 19, stabbed Glen Corner when he intervened to help a friend who was being threatened with a knife. Jobless Firman, who was drunk and high on cannabis, stabbed him once in the chest with one of two knives he was carrying last August. He then shouted: 'I've stabbed the b*****d. Let him die.'

 

8/10/2003

A FATHER high on cannabis when he smothered his baby son to stop him crying was jailed for 12 years yesterday. Richard Barr, 30, from Dundee, killed one-year old Euan by putting his hand over the boy's nose and mouth and squeezing his throat, the High Court in Edinburgh was told.

Despite the efforts of paramedics and doctors, he died in Ninewell's Hospital, Dundee.

The court was told that Barr was unable to offer any explanation, but admitted having partly smothered Ewan five times before to stop him crying. Yesterday the judge, Lord Nimmo Smith, told Barr that he was lucky that his guilty plea to culpable homicide had been accepted by the Crown, as he could have faced trial for murder.

He added, however, that the sentence had to be in double figures to reflect public outrage. "It defies comprehension that a sane person, as you appear to be, should think that an appropriate way of dealing with a crying baby is to smother him until he becomes unconscious, yet you did that on a number of occasions. You seem to have shown no awareness of how very wrong such an act was.

"You were under the influence of cannabis, which may have been a factor."

 

12/02/2007

LIFE FOR KILLER VAN DRIVER HIGH ON CANNABIS A van driver who deliberately killed a cyclist in Islington, north London, whilst high on cannabis has been jailed for life.

Malachi Adam-Smith, 20, has smoked so much ``skunk'' that he had brought on a temporary mental illness, the Old Bailey heard.

The court accepted his plea to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Adam-Smith was in taken to a mental hospital after his behaviour caused concern following long-term use of cannabis but on April 26, last year, he absconded during two hours unsupervised leave.

 

23/06/2007

TWO boy thugs were caged yesterday for a happy-slap killing - but will be out in months.

The yobs, aged 16 and 14, had faced life for attacking dad-of-two Peter Ramsey.

The younger boy slapped the 40-year-old artist as he left a store and the other, high on cannabis, punched him. Mr Ramsey fell "like a domino" and cracked his head on the pavement.

Another youth filmed last October's attack in Southampton, Hants, before all fled.

 

11/03/2008

The rapist was high on cannabis and ecstasy when he spotted his second victim in a Dublin park just days later.

He attacked the schoolgirl in her home and recorded the sex act on her camera phone.