Friday Reads
Posted: July 5, 2013 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics, War on Women, Women's Rights | Tags: Boston Tea Party, Fox News, immigration bill, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Ted Nugent, US Supreme Court 21 Comments
Good Morning!
The same news is dominating the cycle. Republicans have gone crazy attempting to circumvent the democratic process in order to instill the religious right’s anti-abortion views on the country. People are still playing ‘Where’s Snowden?’ Every one is hashing over the new SCOTUS decisions and watching to see if Trayvon Martin will find justice and his parents will get peace. The Supreme Court’s term this year has brought up speculation about Ruth Bader Ginsberg and possible retirement.
At age 80, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, leader of the Supreme Court’s liberal wing, says she is in excellent health, even lifting weights despite having cracked a pair of ribs again, and plans to stay several more years on the bench.
In a Reuters interview late on Tuesday, she vowed to resist any pressure to retire that might come from liberals who want to ensure that Democratic President Barack Obama can pick her successor before the November 2016 presidential election.
Ginsburg said she had fallen in the bathroom of her home in early May, sustaining the same injury she suffered last year near term’s end.
“I knew immediately what it was this time,” she said, adding that there was nothing to do but take pain killers and wait out the six weeks as her ribs healed. Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said on Wednesday that the day after the May 2 incident, Ginsburg was examined at the Office of the Attending Physician at the Capitol and then went about her regular schedule.
I’ve been so tired of all the assaults on women, minorities, and the GLBT by the religious right in this country that I’ve nearly taken to leaving the TV off and limiting my time looking at the news. Here’s some of the things these folks have to say about women.
Women are made to be led, and counseled, and directed. . . . And if I am not a good man, I have no just right in this Church to a wife or wives, or the power to propagate my species. What then should be done with me? Make a eunuch of me, and stop my propagation. –Heber C. Kimball, venerated early LDS apostle (1801-1868)
· A wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband, even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. –Official statement of Southern Baptist Convention, Summer 1998, (15.7 million members)
· The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians. — Pat Robertson, Southern Baptist leader (1930–)
The Holiness of God is not evidenced in women when they are brash, brassy, boisterous, brazen, head-strong, strong-willed, loud-mouthed, overly-talkative, having to have the last word, challenging, controlling, manipulative, critical, conceited, arrogant, aggressive, assertive, strident, interruptive, undisciplined, insubordinate, disruptive, dominating, domineering, or clamoring for power. Rather, women accept God’s holy order and character by being humbly and unobtrusively respectful and receptive in functional subordination to God, church leadership, and husbands. –James Fowler, Women in the Church, 1999.
· Women will be saved by going back to that role that God has chosen for them. Ladies, if the hair on the back of your neck stands up it is because you are fighting your role in the scripture. –Mark Driscoll, founder of Mars Hill nondenominational mega-church franchise. (1970–)
This just makes me want to airdrop them all on the Taliban so they can have their little wars all to themselves. 
Here’s a great little bit of information that relates today’s shrill TeaBots to the real Boston Tea Party Patriots? What would the founders have done with today’s group?
The fact is, the Founding Fathers would have hated the Tea Party – misspelled signs and all.Yes, you heard that right, they would have despised the ammo-hoarding sycophants of AM talk radio for a number of reasons, and would have likely lined them up in front of a firing squad or fitted them for a noose if this was the 18th century.
First of all, the original Tea Party was a protest of being forced to pay taxes on imported goods for which there was no competition. The East India Trading Company had the cozy relationship with the British government that allowed them to have a monopoly on tea and other items. Imagine Walmart being the only store from which you could buy and they dictated both cost and taxes on everything. The real Tea Party wasn’t about mentally unstable rants about oppressive government and imagined Muslim takeovers, it was about actual oppressive government in which there was no representation for the colonists.
In the modern United States, we do have representation and theoretically, everyone can vote. The American Revolution used bullets because ballots weren’t available and the East India Tea Company had too much power in government. Now we have ballots and so-called “patriots” are trying to take away voting rights, talking about using bullets if they don’t get what they want, and supporting corporate power in government via Citizens United. You know, the opposite of what the Founding Fathers and the real Tea Party were all about.
After spending weeks dealing with the fallout from the IRS targeting scandal, Tea Party groups are starting to focus their energy on the immigration bill — a development that could imperil President Obama’s hopes for a speedy approval.
Before adjourning for the Fourth of July holiday break, the Senate easily approved its version of the legislation. The bill now rests with the House, where Republicans say they will take up their own version.
Obama, during his Africa trip, called on the House to “get this done” before the August recess.
But House lawmakers already are hearing conservative calls to slow things down. And if the debate leaks into August — when Congress takes a nearly month-long recess — the prospects could get even more wobbly. The Tea Party, during the 2009 August recess, famously helped stall ObamaCare by storming town hall meetings and other events.
Tea Party groups may be preparing to again mount demonstrations during the summer break. And even if the House passes a bill this month, it’s unlikely the two chambers would be able to agree on a unified piece of legislation by August — leaving the work unfinished going into recess.
While Tea Partiers await that opening, they’re already beginning to stir the pot.
Earlier this week, dozens of conservative groups including the Cincinnati Tea Party sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner urging him to declare the Senate package “dead on arrival.” They complained that the Senate bill, by virtue of giving up to 11 million illegal immigrants a shot at legal status, would make life harder for U.S. workers “struggling to reach the bottom rung of the economic ladder.”
Independence Day Reads
Posted: July 4, 2013 Filed under: Barack Obama, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, France, health, Italy, medicine, morning reads, NSA, National Security Agency, science, Spain, the internet, U.S. Politics, Violence against women, War on Women, Women's Rights | Tags: Adly Mahmud Mansour, Bolivia, cognitive decline, dementia, Evo Morales, gang rape, Groundhog day, HIV treatments, marrow transplants, mental stimulation, Mohammed Morsi, national anthem, reading, sexual assault in Egypt, The Star Spangled Banner 38 Comments
Good Morning!!
So Egyptians staged a whole lot of protests and with the help of the army, overthrew the president they elected about a year ago. From the Boston Globe: Egypt’s army ousts Morsi, who calls it a ‘coup’
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s first democratically elected president was overthrown by the military Wednesday, ousted after just one year in office by the same kind of Arab Spring uprising that brought the Islamist leader to power.
The armed forces announced they would install a temporary civilian government to replace Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, who denounced the action as a ‘‘full coup’’ by the generals. They also suspended the Islamist-drafted constitution and called for new elections.
Millions of anti-Morsi protesters around the country erupted in celebrations after the televised announcement by the army chief. Fireworks burst over crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, where men and women danced, shouting, ‘‘God is great’’ and ‘‘Long live Egypt.’’
That sure sounds like coup. The army overthrows an elected leader and appoints a new one, while suspending the constitution. What else would you call it? And then there’s this:
The army took control of state media and blacked out TV stations operated by the Muslim Brotherhood. The head of the Brotherhood’s political wing was arrested.
It’s like Groundhog Day. A year from now will the whole thing happen all over again?
From BBC News: Egypt swears in Mansour as interim leader after Morsi ousted
The top judge of Egypt’s Constitutional Court, Adly Mahmud Mansour, has been sworn in as interim leader, a day after the army ousted President Mohammed Morsi and put him under house arrest.
Mr Mansour said fresh elections were “the only way” forward, but gave no indication of when they would be held.
Mr Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected leader, is under house arrest after what he says was a military coup.
The army said he had “failed to meet the demands of the people”.
So it’s as if the Pentagon overthrew President Obama and installed Chief Justice Roberts as temporary president, while at the same time suspending the Constitution and shutting down the media.
The Dark Side of Egyptian “Revolution”
There’s also another similarity to the previous Egyptian “revolution” an outbreak of sexual assaults and gang rapes targeting women in public. From Human Rights Watch:
Egyptian officials and political leaders across the spectrum should condemn and take immediate steps to address the horrific levels of sexual violence against women in Tahrir Square. Egyptian anti-sexual harassment groups confirmed that mobs sexually assaulted and in some cases raped at least 91 women in Tahrir Square, over four days of protests beginning on June 30, 2013, amid a climate of impunity.
“The rampant sexual attacks during the Tahrir Square protests highlight the failure of the government and all political parties to face up to the violence that women in Egypt experience on a daily basis in public spaces,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “These are serious crimes that are holding women back from participating fully in the public life of Egypt at a critical point in the country’s development.”
The Egyptian group Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault, which runs a hotline for victims of sexual assault and seeks to intervene to stop attacks, has received scores of reports of attacks on women in Tahrir Square over the past three days. The group confirmed 46 attacks on June 30, 17 on July 1, and 23 on July 2. The group’s volunteers intervened to protect and evacuate women in 31 cases of sexual assault. Four of the women needed medical assistance, including two who were evacuated by ambulance. The women’s rights group Nazra for Feminist Studies had confirmed another five attacks on June 28.
One woman required surgery after being raped with a “sharp object,” volunteers with the group said. In other cases, women were beaten with metal chains, sticks, and chairs, and attacked with knives. In some cases they were assaulted for as long as 45 minutes before they were able to escape.
Please go read the rest at Human Rights Watch.
At CNN, writer Nina Burleigh puts the sexual violence in Egypt in the historical context of male efforts to control women’s access to the public sphere.
Last week, a 22-year-old Dutch journalist was gang-raped in Tahrir Square and had to undergo surgery for severe injuries. The assault reminds us yet again of an often overlooked aspect of the Egyptian revolution.
When Egyptians overthrew their dictator in 2011, one of the first celebratory acts in Tahrir Square included the gang beating and sexual assault of American journalist Lara Logan, who, like the Dutch journalist, landed in the hospital.
The Logan rape has always been portrayed as another unfortunate byproduct of mob violence. In fact, it was much more than that. It was a warning shot fired by men whose political beliefs are founded on a common pillar: Women must stay out of the public square.
One of the hallmarks of revolutionary victory in Tahrir Square has always been rape and sexual harassment. Mobs of men routinely set upon women, isolating, stripping and groping. No one is ever arrested or held accountable, and elected officials shrug their shoulders and blame the victims….
Egyptian women are the primary victims of sexual violence, and ultimately they are the intended recipients of the message: Stay home, your input in government and politics is not wanted.
Read the rest of Burleigh’s analysis at CNN.
In other news,
Bolivian officials laughing hysterically at the media for buying their tall tale
We learned yesterday afternoon that the claims that Bolivian president Evo Morales’ plane was refused permission to fly over France, Italy, and Spain were totally false and that no one forced his plane to land in Austria. See this article at The Atlantic for a complete debunking of the story.
But many so-called progressives are still pushing the false narrative that President Obama somehow was responsible. I was surprised to see Taylor Marsh hyping it this morning, and there has been no correction to Kevin Drum’s nasty claim that Obama behaved like “a Chicago thug.” That was originally in Drum’s headline until commenters told him he was pushing a Tea Party meme and he moved the accusation to the end of his post.
Marsh is also claiming we didn’t know about the extent of NSA spying a year ago. Really? If you agree with her, you might want to check out this detailed article on the NSA spying programs in the Wall Street Journal–dated March 10, 2008. And of course that wasn’t the first time the corporate media covered the story either. All the progs claiming utter shock and awe over Snowden’s revelations should be ashamed of themselves.
I don’t want to completely depress you, so let’s turn to some non-political news. I found a couple interesting science stories on Google this morning.
Here’s some exciting news out of Boston (NYT): After Marrow Transplants, 2 More Patients Appear H.I.V.-Free Without Drugs.
Two H.I.V.-infected patients in Boston who had bone-marrow transplants for blood cancers have apparently been virus-free for weeks since their antiretroviral drugs were stopped, researchers at an international AIDS conference announced Wednesday.
The patients’ success echoes that of Timothy Ray Brown, the famous “Berlin patient,” who has shown no signs of resurgent virus in the five years since he got a bone-marrow transplant from a donor with a rare mutation conferring resistance to H.I.V.
The Boston cases, like Mr. Brown’s, are of no practical use to the 34 million people in the world who have H.I.V. but neither blood cancer nor access to premier cancer-treatment hospitals.
But AIDS experts still find the Boston cases exciting because they are another step in the long and so-far-fruitless search for a cure. They offer encouragement to ambitious future projects to genetically re-engineer infected patients’ cells to be infection-resistant. At least two teams are already experimenting with variants on this idea, said Dr. Steven G. Deeks, an AIDS researcher at the University of California, San Francisco.
It’s real progress, even though the treatment won’t be widely available for a long time.
From BBC News: Active brain ‘keeps dementia at bay’
A lifetime of mental challenges leads to slower cognitive decline after factoring out dementia’s impact on the brain, US researchers say.
The study, published in Neurology, adds weight to the idea that dementia onset can be delayed by lifestyle factors….
In a US study, 294 people over the age of 55 were given tests that measured memory and thinking, every year for about six years until their deaths.
They also answered a questionnaire about whether they read books, wrote letters and took part in other activities linked to mental stimulation during childhood, adolescence, middle age, and in later life.
After death, their brains were examined for evidence of the physical signs of dementia, such as brain lesions and plaques.
The study found that after factoring out the impact of those signs, those who had a record of keeping the brain busy had a rate of cognitive decline estimated at 15% slower than those who did not.
That’s some impressive empirical evidence for something many of us have long suspected. So maybe we are helping keep our brains young through our obsession with reading and arguing about politics on the internet!
I’ll end with a recommendation that you listen to this NPR story on the history of “The Star Spangled Banner” and how it became our national anthem. It’s only about 8 minutes long. Or you can just read the article. I thought it was really interesting.
Now it’s your turn. What stories are you following today? If you’re headed out for barbeques and family gatherings instead of surfing the net, have a wonderful time and drop in for a minute if you can.
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY EVERYONE!!
Glenn Greenwald’s Dishonest Attack on Paul Krugman
Posted: July 3, 2013 Filed under: Barack Obama, Foreign Affairs, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: Benghazi, deliberately obtuse, fake scandals, Glenn Greenwald, hype, Jonathan Chait, Paul Krugman 98 Comments
A few days ago Paul Krugman wrote a not-very-exciting post at his blog “The Conscience of a Liberal.” The point of the post was that right wingers have not been as successful in their efforts to hype fake scandals during the Obama administration as they were in the Clinton years. Krugman writes:
When Barack Obama was elected, I was sure that it would be the Clinton years all over — that he would be subjected to an endless series of claims of “scandal”, creating the sense of a tainted administration even though all the alleged scandals would turn out to be either trivial or nonexistent. Remember, after all those years of front-page headlines and $70 million in public funds, the Whitewater investigation came up dry.
In fact, however, none of that happened during Obama’s first term. But would the second term be different? For a little while it looked as if the old scandal machinery was finally springing back to life, with Benghazi, the IRS, and more. You could almost hear the sigh of contentment from a certain part of the press corps.
Krugman’s post had nothing to do with the NSA leaks, Edward Snowden, or Glenn Greenwald; but he made the mistake of just barely mentioning the NSA story.
But now it has all evaporated. Benghazi never made sense; it turns out that the IRS was targeting conservative as well as liberal groups. And as Chait says in the linked article, the NSA stuff is a policy dispute, not the kind of scandal the right wing wants.
And today, Greenwald chose to sic his permanently outraged shock troops fans on Krugman based on a deliberately obtuse reading of Krugman’s referencing Chait’s characterization of the NSA issue as a “policy dispute.” Here’s Greenwald’s take on it.
Defending the Obama administration, Paul Krugman pronounced that “the NSA stuff is a policy dispute, not the kind of scandal the right wing wants.” Really? In what conceivable sense is this not a serious scandal? If you, as an American citizen, let alone a journalist, don’t find it deeply objectionable when top national security officials systematically mislead your representatives in Congress about how the government is spying on you, and repeatedly lie publicly about resulting political controversies over that spying, what is objectionable? If having the NSA engage in secret, indiscriminate domestic spying that warps if not outright violates legal limits isn’t a “scandal”, then what is?
Of course it was really Jonathan Chait who made the distinction between “scandals” and “policy disputes.” Here’s what Chait wrote about it:
Obama’s prosecution of leaks, or use of the National Security Agency — is not a scandal at all. It’s a policy controversy. One can argue that Obama’s policy stance is wrong, or dangerous, or a threat to democracy. But when the president is carrying out duly passed laws and acting at every stage with judicial approval, then the issue is the laws themselves, not misconduct.
And of course it’s really Chait with whom Greenwald is enraged; because Chait had the temerity to write a somewhat humorous column in which he noted the similarities between Greenwald and Ralph Nader–one of which is that each of these men was apparently born without a sense of humor.
But instead of attacking Chait, Greenwald picks a fight with Krugman, who really doesn’t need that right now since he’s grieving the lost of his father. It’s probably a low blow for me to bring that up, but I can’t believe Greenwald didn’t know it, since he apparently reads Greenwald’s blog.
Greenwald has been running around to any media outlet who will have him announcing that he’s got an upcoming “bombshell” scoop that “will shock the world.” I wish he’d just get busy and publish it instead of spending so much time hyping his stories and lecturing everyone about how to interpret Edward Snowden’s behavior.
I think today I’ve finally had enough of St. Glenn to last me the rest of my life.
Live Blog: Texas #HB2 Abortion Law Debate
Posted: July 2, 2013 Filed under: just because, U.S. Politics, Women's Rights | Tags: abortion debate, Rick Perry, Texas HB2, Texas legislature 99 Comments
I thought I’d put up a live blog to discuss the abortion debate in the Texas legislature. Here’s a live feed on Youtube and another one at the Texas Tribune.
Article from The Houston Chronicle: Sights and sounds surrounding HB2 hearing
A marathon hearing on a package of sweeping anti-abortion proposals is proceeding without interruption inside a the state Capitol.
But outside, in a courtyard a couple of feet away from the room where a House panel is hearing testimony on House Bill 2, the scene has been consistently rowdy all day.
That’s where a band of pro-choice activists have set up shop with a microphone (they were also doing prayer groups and handing out twisty balloons). And that’s where a smaller group of pro-life activists have taken to countering that message with constant chanting
Photos and audio clips at the link.
Here’s a live blog at the Burnt Orange site (Stand With Texas Women). On Twitter people are using the hashtags #HB2 and #StandWithTexasWomen.
Tuesday Reads
Posted: July 2, 2013 Filed under: Barack Obama, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, morning reads, Russia, U.S. Politics, Violence against women | Tags: Arizona wildfires, Edward Snowden, firefighters, marijuana-schizophrenia connection, Mohammed Morsi, suicide and schizophrenia 73 Comments
Good Morning!!
As the record-breaking heat wave continues in the West, firefighters in Arizona continue to fight the wildfires that killed 19 of their compatriots last night. NBC News reports:
Firefighters battling the Arizona blaze that killed 19 elite colleagues faced a tough task on Tuesday amid an excessive heat warning issued by the National Weather Service. Gusting winds of up to 20 mph threatened to fan the flames near Yarnell, Arizona, and officials were wary about propane tanks known to be in the town of 700 people. The dead firefighters’ colleagues continued to battle the raging blaze that by 9:30 p.m. local time Monday (11:30 p.m. ET) was zero percent contained. More firefighters are expected to join the 500-strong group. As the community began to mourn the loss of the men decribed as “heroes” by President Barack Obama, medical examiners were due to begin carrying out autopsies in the wake of the area’s “largest mass-casualty event in memory.”
The names of the men killed are:
Anthony Rose, 23; Eric Marsh, 43; Robert Caldwell, 23; Clayton Whitted , 28; Scott Norris, 28; Dustin Deford, 24; Sean Misner, 26; Garret Zuppiger, 27; Travis Carter, 31; Grant McKee, 21; Travis Turbyfill, 27; Jesse Steed, 36; Wade Parker, 22; Joe Thurston, 32; William Warneke, 25; and John Percin, 24; Kevin Woyjeck, 21; Chris MacKenzie, 30; and Andrew Ashcraft, 29.
From the Wall Street Journal: Sudden Turn in Flames Doomed Firefighters.
The men, aged between 21 and 43, were members of the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew who endured grueling training together before being dispatched to battle wildfires nationwide. Based in Prescott, only 34 miles away from Yarnell, they knew the terrain. But late Sunday afternoon, the firefighters radioed from their positions on the ground that they were in trouble. A short time later, a helicopter pilot reported to the Arizona State Forestry’s dispatch center in Phoenix that firefighters were attempting to shelter themselves west of Yarnell under fire-shelter covers, a heat-resistant specialty fabric made of aluminum foil, woven silica, and fiberglass—their last line of defense. Smoky conditions and heat made it difficult to check on the firefighters. “It felt like forever,” said Carrie Dennett, state fire-prevention officer for Arizona State Forestry. What rescuers eventually found was that the men had been caught in a “burn over,” a sudden change in the direction of the fire that overtook them faster than they could get out of the way, according to a spokesman with the Prescott Fire Department.
Heartbreaking.
Edward Snowden’s search for a country that will grant him asylum continues.
This morning the list of countries he had applied to increased to 21, but so far none has offered to shelter him, according to CBS News. Snowden withdrew his request to Russia after Vladimir Putin said Snowden would have to stop leaking information designed to hurt the U.S.
CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports that behind the scenes, the U.S. and Russia have been talking non-stop about how to resolve the Snowden conundrum. President Putin is between a rock and a hard place, explains Palmer; he won’t expel Snowden into U.S. custody, but he hopes to limit the damage to U.S.-Russian relations. With Snowden’s withdrawal of the asylum request to Russia, Palmer says, you could almost hear a sign of relief from the Kremlin. Poland rejected Snowden’s asylum request on Tuesday, and officials in Germany, Norway, Austria, Spain and Switzerland said that he could not apply for asylum from abroad. Many European countries require an asylum request to be made on their soil. Later Tuesday, India’s External Affairs Ministry said it had carefully examined Snowden’s request and decided to turn it down. Ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin told reporters the government had “concluded that we see no reason to accede to that request.” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, coincidentally wrapping up a long-planned visit to Moscow, said Tuesday that his government had not yet received an official asylum request from Snowden, but that it would be considered if and when received.
The massive protests continue in Egypt.
From The Washington Post: Egypt protesters step up pressures with president facing military deadline and internal rifts.
CAIRO — With a military deadline for intervention ticking down, protesters seeking the ouster of Egypt’s Islamist president sought Tuesday to push the embattled leader further toward the edge with another massive display of people power. Meanwhile, Mohammed Morsi faced fissures from within after a stunning surge of street rage reminiscent of Egypt’s Arab Spring revolution in 2011 that cleared the way for Morsi’s long-suppressed Muslim Brotherhood to win the first open elections in decades. Three government spokesmen were the latest to quit as part of high-level defections that underscored his increasing isolation and fallout from the ultimatum from Egypt’s powerful armed forces to either find a political solution by Wednesday or the generals would seek their own way to end the political chaos. The Cabinet, led by the Morsi-backed Prime Minister Hesham Qandil, was scheduled to meet later Tuesday. But the defense and interior ministers were expected to boycott in a sign of support for the military’s warnings. The police, which are under control of the Interior Ministry, have stood on the sidelines of the protests, refusing even to protect the offices of the Muslim Brotherhood that have been attacked and ransacked.
President Obama weighed in on the Egyptian situation yesterday. From Bloomberg Businessweek:
President Barack Obama told Mursi in a telephone call yesterday that the U.S. “is committed to the democratic process in Egypt and does not support any single party or group,” according to a White House statement. Obama encouraged Mursi “to take steps to show that he is responsive” to the concerns of demonstrators, stressing “that democracy is about more than elections, it is also about ensuring that the voices of all Egyptians are heard and represented by their government.” During the conversation, Obama “underscored his deep concern about violence” and sexual assaults during the demonstrations and urged Mursi “to make clear to his supporters that all forms of violence are unacceptable,” according to the statement.
In other news,
There’s an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal by Samuel T. Wilkinson on the connection between marijuana and schizophrenia. Years ago the boyfriend of one of my closest friends developed schizophrenia after years of heavy daily pot-smoking. At the time I suspected that there was a connection. He probably had a genetic tendency toward the disease that might not have manifested without the marijuana use. Wilkinson writes:
Recent legislation has permitted the recreational use of marijuana in Colorado and Washington state. Those who support legalization often tout the lack of serious medical consequences associated with the drug. Most of us know people who used marijuana in high school or college and seem to have suffered no significant medical consequences. As the medical and scientific literature continues to accumulate, however, it is becoming clearer that the claim that marijuana is medically harmless is false. There is a significant and consistent relationship between marijuana use and the development of schizophrenia and related disorders. Schizophrenia is considered by psychiatrists to be the most devastating of mental illnesses. Patients who suffer from it often experience auditory or visual hallucinations, severe social withdrawal and cognitive impairment. Many require frequent and prolonged hospitalization in psychiatric wards. Schizophrenia affects almost three million Americans—more than six times the number of people with multiple sclerosis, two and a half times the number of people with Parkinson’s disease, and more than twice the number of people with HIV/AIDS. Less than one-third of patients with schizophrenia can hold a steady job or live independently. A large portion (about one-third) of homeless people in the U.S. suffer from the disease. Though they receive little attention in the legalization debate, the scientific studies showing an association between marijuana use and schizophrenia and other disorders are alarming. A 2004 article in the highly respected British Journal of Psychiatry reviewed four large studies, all of which showed a significant and consistent association between consumption of marijuana (mostly during teenage years or early 20s) and the later development of schizophrenia. The review concluded that marijuana is a “causal component,” among others, in the development of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders.
I hope everyone will read this article. I don’t think anything is going to stop the legalization of marijuana at this point, but we need to be aware of the dangers of this drug to young people. Schizophrenia is a very serious illness that develops in early adulthood, usually before age 35. It is partly genetic but is usually triggered by some kind of environmental stress. Marijuana use appears to be one possible trigger. A high percentage of people with schizophrenia end up committing suicide.
A large 5-year World Health Organization study consisting of the follow-up of 1056 patients exhibiting psychotic symptoms found the most common cause of death in those with schizophrenia was suicide (Sartorius et al, 1986). In their review of the subject Caldwell and Gottesman (1990) found that 9-13% of patients with schizophrenia eventually commit suicide. At least 20-40% make suicide attempts (Meltzer & Fatemi, 1995) and 1-2% go on to complete in their attempt within the next 12 months (Meltzer & Okayli 1995). Therefore, suicide in schizophrenia has long been a major area of concern and research efforts.
In Denmark, Mortensen and Juel (1993) used the national case register to retrospectively examine mortality in a sample of 9156 patients following their first admission with schizophrenia, and reported 50% of males and 35% of females went on to commit suicide during the 17-year study period, with the relative risk of suicide increasing by 56% over this time. This suggests that the current level of risk is not stable, and is certainly not improving. The devastation that suicide brings for relatives, as well as the immense personal suffering the victim endures, must surely make this one of the most pressing issues for psychiatry to address. Carers and professionals are often left with feelings of profound ineffectualness and guilt in the face of suicide, and so it is vital for clinicians to feel confident in their understanding of risk assessment and management in this particularly vulnerable group.
My friend never recovered significantly; and the last I heard, he continued to have delusions and cognitive distortions. I doubt if he stayed on anti-psychotic medications–that wasn’t his style. He was employed at times and managed to stay in touch with some friends. But he was a completely different person than before he developed the disease. Before, he was a talented musician and earned a living playing in an Irish folk group. He was gregarious and had a many friends. For those of us who knew him, it was as if that person died and someone else took his place.
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