In 2018, 27-year-old Bryn Spejcher, an inexperienced marijuana smoker in California, killed her boyfriend Chad O’Melia by stabbing him 108 times, a crime the local district attorney described as “horrific” and “one of the worst our medical examiner has ever seen.” A jury found Spejcher guilty of involuntary manslaughter, but she received only probation at sentencing because of a compelling presentation of her defense of cannabis-induced psychosis. Prior to the violent incident, Spejcher had taken two hits of legal marijuana from a bong, and claimed that she began “seeing things that weren’t there” and lost touch with reality. She also stabbed herself repeatedly in the neck, and stabbed her own dog. Law enforcement agents called to the scene had to break her arm with a metal baton to get her to let go of the knife; multiple Taserings had no effect.
Cases like Spejcher’s illustrate the stakes involved in the federal reclassification of marijuana. If President Trump follows through with such a move, the drug would remain illegal on the federal level, but would receive an imprimatur of being safer and face fewer restrictions, with significant commercial and social implications.
Yet voices across public discourse persist in asking: why should anyone care if President Trump does just that?
Celebrities like Mike Tyson and Joe Rogan and hedge-fund bosses like Andrew Lahde tell us that marijuana is no big deal. Numerous states have already legalized it for medical and recreational usage, and they claim to be regulating it well. If we are to believe the advocates, marijuana is a miracle cure for PTSD, anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder — not to mention an unbeatable salve for the pain suffered by cancer patients.
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