Virginia seems to be the latest state to jump on the “blame marijuana for everything” bandwagon, after law enforcement in Lynchburg say marijuana led to a teen dying in the woods alone from hypothermia.
Seriously.
Investigators in Lynchburg Commonwealth say that 18-year-old Jamisha Gilbert crashed her car and lost all touch with reality the day after Thanksgiving. Despite not knowing exactly what happened, they’ve blamed the pot for Gilbert’s decision to hike out into the woods and freeze to death after the accident.
Commonwealth attorney Michael Doucette says that the pot combined with the impact of the accident caused her to make irrational decisions that led to her death – notably, stripping down naked and running through a briar patch some two miles from the crash.
| Jamisha Gilbert’s car. |
“There are instances, and in Jamisha Gilbert’s case being one of them, where because of this combination with the use of marijuana along with the psychoactive affect that it can have not always, but can have, it’s something that needs to be discussed,” Doucette said.
Most of his assumption seems to be based on writings that Gilbert did in her diary, which was found at the scene. From her diary:
“I write these words in this book in order to share the strange, dark secrets in my head that I can’t explain the origin. I’ve only realized these secrets through the high I’ve received through Mary Jane. The euphoria + [sic]I’m placed into a world unlike this one that has revealed to me that the world I live in is like the matrix. ”
Clearly, Gilbert has never been high himself and had the mind-blowing thoughts it can produce in inexperienced users – the type of thoughts that teens often write down in personal diaries. The rest of Doucette’s assumption seems to come from Gilbert’s mother who told investigators that her daughter was known to act “crazy” when she smoked pot and would “do things she didn’t remember”.
But marijuana just doesn’t account for this. Frankly, the report seems to indicate that Gilbert was battling from some psychological issues, including claiming at times that her stepfather had “raised her to be a demon”. And, of course, there’s no way to determine whether or not she was suffering from some major mental issues — making it much easier to blame weed.
Did we mention that the three other people Gilbert was smoking with that night didn’t lose their minds whatsoever? No? Well, that’s because we didn’t think we had to mention it since people don’t simply lose their minds after using cannabis. Of course, they had only smoked pot and weren’t in a major car accident whereby a car was tangled up in guard rails on it’s side with both airbags blown.
You know, the type of accident that can leave most anyone – marijuana users or not – in a daze and state of shock? Yeah. That type of accident. Well, apparently that type of accident just doesn’t account for her behavior to the Virginia medical examiner’s office. Of course, we are talking about a state that has some of the harshest pot laws in existence.
Read the official death investigation report in .pdf form here.