The Use of Mind-Altering Drugs by Terrorists: Some New facts

I promised that I would record what I knew about the latest Paris atrocities and drug abuse, once I knew it. I will not be surprised if more emerges (though it may be necessary to search quite hard for it, so uninterested are the authorities and media in this aspect of the matter). The French authorities are still far from completing their inquiries and I am not sure we even have a complete list of perpetrators and suspects. But here is an interim summary:

 

We still have a very partial picture, however, some facts so far revealed bear out my view that such killers tend to come from a milieu of petty crime in which drug abuse is common.

 

I have so far compiled the following (some links are to French publications) about those whose names have so far been linked to the atrocities, and drug abuse.

 

Ibrahim Abdeslam and Salah Abdeslam ran a Brussels caf�� closed after complaints of the stink of dope led to a police raid:

 

http://www.lalibre.be/actu/belgique/brahim-abdeslam-qui-s-est-fait-exploser-a-paris-tenait-un-cafe-a-molenbeek-5649c11a3570bccfaf14455b

 

And Ibrahim Abdeslam, according to his ex-wife, was a heavy smoker of cannabis.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3322385/Ex-wife-Comptoir-Voltaire-caf-bomber-reveals-jobless-layabout-spent-day-bed-smoking-pot-French-say-blew-mistake-fiddling-suicide-vest.html

 

And

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/11/18/paris-terrorist-smoked-alarming-amount-of-cannabis_n_8589508.html?utm_hp_ref=uk&ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067

 

Abdelhamid Abaaoud , the supposed ���mastermind��� of the atrocities, is reported to have drifted into a ���life of thievery and drugs���

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/abdelhamid-abaaoud-everything-we-know-about-the-paris-attacks-mastermind-a6738776.html

 

 

And one of the Bataclan theatre killers, Omar Ismail Mostefai,  was reported to have committed ���a string of petty offences���.What were they? I haven���t seen them detailed in any British outlet, but  Paris Match lists them here. They include violence involving the use or threat of weapons, robbery with violence, breaking and entering, counterfeiting cheques���  and ���.

���achat des stupefiants��� - the purchase or possession of drugs.

 

http://www.parismatch.com/Actu/Societe/Ismael-Omar-Mostefai-profil-d-un-kamikaze-francais-866191

 

What does this mean? I don���t claim to know. Conceivably, it means nothing at all, though surely the habitual use of powerful mind-altering drugs by people who then commit crimes of extraordinary horror and callousness is suggestive of something, even to the most prejudiced mind?

 

I just think the pattern of correlation between terrorist outrages and drugtaking needs to be investigated and noticed in a scientific and objective fashion, and examined on each occasion these events happen. It shouldn���t be left to dissenting journalists to compile such things.