This is the bombshell: Trayvon Martin had traces of the Marijuana Menace in his system!
(Guardian UK) — Trayvon Martin had traces of marijuana in his system on the night he was killed by a neighbourhood watch leader later charged with the teenager’s murder, a postmortem report has revealed.
According to the document released on Thursday by prosecutors in Florida, traces of the drug THC, the primary psychoactive ingredient of marijuana, were found in Martin’s blood and urine during an autopsy on 27 February, the day after he was killed in a confrontation with George Zimmerman.
Obviously, this changes everything. Because we all know the minute a reefer addict hits the evil weed, they fly into a fearless rage and charge the nearest gun wielding citizen or police officer with no provocation.
Goddamn, what is this shit, the rip-roaring 1930s paranoia incarnate? /wrists
Seriously, when was the last time you saw an episode of COPS where the perp had gotten stoned and smashed up his car, or his wife’s face? Marijuana can be detectable in traces for weeks, meaning Trayvon Martin probably wasn’t freshly stoned when he was shot. If so, I wish he had gotten baked right before Zimmerman decided to stick his nose, literally, into this. I really do. Because the whole shitty mess might have turned out very differently.
In contrast, no tox screen was performed on Zimmerman. He may have been under the influence of the evil weed himself.
Either one of them could have been smoking crack or shooting smack right up until a few days beforehand and we’d never know. That’s the tragic comedy of drug testing, they’re most likely to detect the least harmful psychoactive substance.
Well, that certainly justifies shooting him at “intermediate range”. Case closed.
/Sarcasm.
I heard the “news” of the THC in his system last night on CNN (background noise so things aren’t quiet; not listening for anything truly informative). I marveled how the reporter made a big stink about the weed in his system. She gave a very quick “disclaimer” that the autopsy results didn’t reveal the *amount* of THC he had in him, but she still treated this as if it were some *big* reveal. Because we all know people go crazy and get agitated when they’re high. Even if he did have weed, it still has no bearing on whether or not George Zimmerman had the right to “stand his ground”. Nor does it have any bearing on whether or not he should have been stalking the kid to begin with. She even referenced Zimmerman’s comment to the 911 operator about Trayvon appearing disoriented or suspect. Gosh, it was getting dark outside (does anyone know the approximate time that Trayvon was walking back from the convenience store? I haven’t found that yet), rain was imminent and seeing as Trayvon wasn’t staying at home, he might very well have been unfamiliar with the area. Combine all that with the fact that he was chatting with his girlfriend and you can easily have a situation where he looked disoriented.
Actually, the fact that he may have had THC in his system leads me to think that Martin was completely innocent of anything.
Have you ever known any high on MJ to be violent? Of course not – and he was supposedly on the way back from the shop after buying some candy. He obviously had the munchies.
That would explain the need to go out for candy. It also works against Zimmerman’s claim that Martin was violent and aggressive.
Tony: Trayvon was killed on February 26, a few minutes past 7:15 PM, going by the cell phone logs from his girlfriend. He was at his father’s fiancee’s house to watch the NBA All-Star game with family and friends, and he’d gone walking to the corner store for snacks during halftime.
(ref: ABC News)
That monster! He did drugs; therefore he deserved to die! After all, we’re in a war, here…
These days “reefer madness” just makes me think of the title song from the musical:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P_qjLhtA74&w=420&h=315%5D
It’s like the old joke goes: cannabis causes paranoia and delusion in people who don’t use it.
Though once cannabis is legalized, as I think it eventually must be, what will the reefer madness crowd do, knowing that their fellow citizens are walking about with THC in their systems and there are no legal consequences? What other reasons will they find to persecute minorities? I hope we manage a smooth transition to a post-Prohibition society.
As far as I understand, traces of use of cannabis can be detected for a very long time after the effects have worn off, so while it does show that Martin occasionally used pot (which was known anyhow), if we’re talking about trace amount it’s unlikely to have any bearing on the situation on the night in question.
Unfortunately, because it’s illegal, it’s going to be touted as a reason to consider Martin inherently criminal and guilty by assumption.
For some reason, Zimmerman’s far more questionable record (several arrests, frequent bogus 911 calls) isn’t considered to be in any way relevant by the same people most likely to condemn Martin’s use of pot…
Just ask Ross Rabagliati.
If you don’t remember him, he was the Canadian snowboarder who won the gold medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics, then got the medal taken away because traces of THC were found in his system. He got it given back primarily because even though marijuana was illegal, it wasn’t actually on the list of banned substances for the Olympics. It isn’t particularly a performance enhancing drug, after all.
The thing is, the amount in his system was consistent with his description of the likely events: he hadn’t smoked marijuana at all himself during training (he did admit he had done so in the past), but at the farewell party before he left for the Olympics, someone else in the room lit up. From what I heard, the people who ran the drug tests admitted that the amount in his system was small enough to match.
So someone else at the same party lit up, and there was still enough cannabis byproducts in his system to be detected over a week later. Yeah, that stuff sticks around.