During that psychotic break, she stabbed O’Melia multiple times, eventually killing him. She also stabbed herself repeatedly, officials said.
The next morning, officers arrived at the apartment to find O’Melia in a pool of blood and Spejcher screaming hysterically while still holding a knife in her hands. As officers tried to disarm her, Spejcher plunged the knife into her neck, authorities said.
This seems like the right move to me. If you drink alcohol, you know that you’ll be impaired driving and should be held accountable. When you smoke pot, you don’t expect that you’ll stab yourself in the neck. She truly seems to be a victim just as much as the guy, even if his outcome was ultimately worse.
“This seems like the right move to me. If you drink alcohol, you know that you’ll be impaired driving and should be held accountable. When you smoke pot, you don’t expect that you’ll stab yourself in the neck. She truly seems to be a victim just as much as the guy, even if his outcome was ultimately worse.”
Even for the internet, this is stupid.
Prison is supposed to exist to rehabilitate someone who commits a crime, if she had a psychological break prison is not really the place to send her.
I think she should get psychological treatment though instead of probation, they should get to the bottom of what caused this so it wouldn’t happen again. Also I would definitely need some counselling after killing someone during an episode.
Prison is supposed to exist to rehabilitate someone who commits a crime
Absolutely false. What gave you this idea?
Prison has the following priorities:
- Specific deterrence: while the prisoner is incarcerated, they are physically incapable of committing most possible crimes against the populace. After they get out, hopefully their hatred of prison will keep them from reoffending.
- General deterrence: People who would otherwise commit crimes will choose not to for fear of prison.
Rehabilitation is not and never has been a goal of American prisons. It’s an actual goal in e.g. Norwegian prisons, if you want to know what such a system looks like.
Well, no. Those are the reasons the prison industry gives when pressed for an explanation for why conditions are so brutal and recidivism is so high.
Prison is not an effective deterrence in either of the examples you provided.
The American prison system has precisely one priority, profit. Anything else is tap dancing.
I did say prison is supposed to rehabilitate someone as that’s the only way a prison is effective. The American system doesn’t even work as a deterrence since you got like the highest percentage of your population imprisoned among the better off countries not run by just a warlord.
Even if you are using prison as a theoretical deterrence putting someone who had a psychological break in there deters nothing.
Either way, “deterrence” implies that the goal is to stop willful, intentional acts. It doesn’t sound like this woman did any of this willfully or intentionally.
What part of “the drug that makes people chill out and eat snacks” do you think equals “I’ll harm myself and others”?
How is Marijuana induced psychosis diagnosed and confirmed?
There’s a few ways to do it, but analysis is normally done via PRISM along with other things.
“PRISM is a semi-structured diagnostic interview designed to deal with the problems of psychiatric diagnosis when subjects/patients drink heavily or use drugs”
Huh, what’s the accuracy like?
Like a lot of things it’s a differential analysis, meaning it’s down to narrowing things down but there is also blood tests, chemical tests etc. It’s fairly accurate but relies on anecdotal evidence such as past historyt etc.
Many years ago I worked in ‘criminal psych’ but this isn’t just “Oh I think this is why it happened.” The article is light on but it seems she has never shown any psychological/psychiatric issues. This is a difficult one for me since I’ve seen people with substance-induced (or drug-induced) psychosis.
Psychosis is crippling, and she will be experiencing guilt and there’s probably an onset of a psychotic disorder. People saying she ‘got off light’, while she’s lucid she knows what she did and will be struggling for life with this.
Wow,Terriffic analysis, thank you!
Any time!
Psychosis is a literal break from reality. I suspect when the police showed up she was no longer psychotic and realised what was happening and couldn’t deal with what had happened. She knew she did it but couldn’t understand how or why but knew she did it by physical evidence, she now knows she did it but the integration of her psychotic state and actions to her non-psychotic state would be crushing, hence the suicidal actions she had.
Stab yourself in the neck?
So they’re saying that taking a couple of bong hits made this girl stab someone 108 times and try to kill herself? Seems like she may have bigger issues than just “marijuana induced psychosis”… I’ve taken plenty of bong hits in my life and never stabbed anyone nor seen anyone else try to do so. It sounds like either that weed was laced with PCP or she has some other serious psychological issues. Either way she probably shouldn’t just be walking away from this free and clear…
Weed increases risk for psychosis. Just because it did not happen to you or anyone you know isn’t relevant here. The risk seems to be higher for higher THC content.
Oh cool, so if I go drink a bottle of Everclear and do a few lines of coke I can go on a killing spree and not go to jail or get committed to an insane asylum? I just get to walk away? If I consumed all of that I most certainly wouldn’t be “in my right mind”. Is that how this loophole works, or is it only for THE DEVILS LETTUCE?
No, because a psychosis is not the same as a drug trip.
Well, cocaine induced psychosis and alcohol induced psychosis are both very real things, so I should be able to get as drunk and coked up as I want and face zero consequences like this lady did right?
If you get a psychosis because of it, yes. Not if you just exhibit the normal effects of the drug you took. Your gotcha argument does not work.
No, what doesn’t work is this strawman nonsense implying that marijuana is somehow more dangerous than any of these other things. If she had gotten drunk and claimed “psychosis” she would have been laughed out of the courtroom and sent straight to jail. This idea that smoking weed once will cause you to become criminally insane is the same nonsense that was played up when weed was made illegal in the first place.
Who spouts this strawman nonsene? You are building it, because apparently your drug of choice is attacked in your interpretation. The psychosis was diagnosed and the clinical manifestation of it is completely different from a normal weed trip. People should definitely know, that this can happen, what the chances are, that higher THC content is riskier and what predispositions could feed into it. The same holds true for other drugs. You know, so that consumers can make informed choices about the stuff they consume.
I don’t understand what I’m reading here. Maybe California law is different, but if she was sentenced to probation, then doesn’t that mean that she was found guilty?
If her defense was supposed to be that she was not responsible due to psychosis, wouldn’t she be found not guilty due to the psychosis, and would be treated in a psychiatric hospital?
Prison is absolutely not about rehabilitation and never was. Reformation, maybe but, not rehabilitation. Agreed though she should be evaluated and treated for any psychological issues.
I know weed makes people paranoid but most seem rational and grounded. Seems like there was definitely some pre-existing conditions for this one.
Prison is absolutely not about rehabilitation and never was.
Not in the US, but it is in many places. Here’s an example from Germany:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/this-is-prison-60-minutes-goes-to-germany/
This is a great example of sentencing disparity between men and women. Swap the genders and it’s likely 20+ years.
That was bath salts not marijuana… or she it’s just nuts AF…
What if they probe her 108 times as punishment?
