Well, turns out "Miami Zombie" Rudy Eugene wasn't high on bath salts when he chomped on Ronald Poppo's face.
"The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner found only marijuana in the body of the man who was fatally shot while chewing a homeless man's face over Memorial Day weekend," wrote NBC Miami.
Wait, wait -- marijuana? QUICK. WE HAVE TO OUTLAW THAT STUFF!
Why hasn't anybody taken that stance? Why hasn't anyone suggested maybe weed makes you eat faces? Because it's ridiculous, and the opposition to marijuana is entirely fabricated. NBC Miami used the "only marijuana" line. The Miami Herald has "only pot" in its headline, CBS News has "just marijuana," WPTV says "only had marijuana in system," and the BBC, San Francisco Examiner, and Time magazine all had similar headlines.
The "only weed" problem means we still have no idea what made Eugene go nuts -- but everybody has already accepted that it wasn't weed.
Why is it illegal again?
Because it was outlawed -- and made a Schedule I controlled substance -- with incomplete information and law-enforcement hype. Kind of like the information Broward County has on the proposed ban on bath salts -- it referenced Eugene in the news release.
Nobody's saying bath salts (and synthetic marijuana) should be legal. But people get sent to jail over this stuff -- as thousands upon thousands in the "War on Drugs" already have -- and shouldn't we expect drug policy to be based on actual information, not screeching parents and rumors about a Miami zombie?
In parting, here is a video of DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart, trying desperately last week to avoid actually answering questions about why marijuana is bad.
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