Well, if you take the two shrinks' reports, you start from the premis that the medication made him well able to reason and function, right? Whatever that meant to the medical professionals, evidently this guy thought it worth the risk to get off of the stuff. He lost that gamble and so did a presumably innocent bystander.
Now don't take that the wrong way. I'm not trying to cast any disparigment onto Ms. Webdale. It's just that it's unknown. Maybe she was a total stranger, maybe she was his psycho girlfriend who had been antagonizing him for years. It's just unknonwn at this point.
But I believe we all have the right to take that gamble for all the same reasons why we all have the natural right
to take drugs if we believe the benefits outweigh the risks.
Which do you think would be worse? Dying a sudden, unexpected, untimely and greusome death under the wheels of a train or getting stuck for life either under incarceration or under the influence of drugs that you can't stand?
And what are the relative odds? I'd say it's an extremely rare event that someone in a state of delusion, whether due to drugs or the lack of them, does any serious harm to anyone. How many people are involuntarily committed unjustly and then driven crazy in the process?
Under the best and most benevolent government in history, the odds are pretty good that for law being enforced. Under
this government? Darlin, they sincerely believe that people who smoke pot
at all are twice crazy; by virtue of the overpowering haleucenagenic and addictive properties of the demon weed
and, by doing it anyway, knowing they might take your kids, toss you in a cell for a long time, fine you and kick your ass in the process.
Clearly, doing something that might bring about that sort of risk is insane, isn't it? Not really, it's just personal dignity. The crime is in properly attributing the bad outcome to the actors, not to a mildly impairing euphoric herb.
But as long as the folks in charge now are holding most of the guns (and this goes back to Eisenhower, in ernest to Nixon) they're not going to mess w/ people who act like Steve Cartisano or Andrea Yates. They're going after the pot smokers. They'll get to the crazy people next, they keep promising.
Nope, I think I'll take my chances w/ you deciding your drugs aren't worth it. You, off your drugs, even if you lived next door to me, scare me a whole bitch of a lot less than those people.
Check this out
:wink:If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base.
-- Dave Barry