Children of the Elite

~ Clarissa

Sarah Gerard is the only daughter of a successful Florida politician. She’s also a writer. Sarah received two college degrees from very pricey colleges.

This year, Sarah released a true crime book where she investigates the 2016 murder of her acquaintance Carolyn Bush. Carolyn was murdered by her roommate who was experiencing a marijuana-induced psychotic break.

“I didn’t know that was a thing,” Sarah chirps excitedly in her book about Carolyn’s murder. “Can it be a thing? I smoked a lot of pot and never had a psychotic break!”

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the intellectual level of our creative elites. The tuition at the college Gerard attended is over $60,000. Per year. And that was before she received a graduate degree and taught at several very prestigious universities. Yet she thinks that if she didn’t have a severe reaction to a substance, this means nobody else can. She goes on for all 350 pages of her book trying to unravel what could have possibly caused this murder. I don’t want to refer to a book about a murder of a young woman as hilarious, so I will say it’s hysterical, uproarious, funny, and highly entertaining. And not because of the author’s extraordinary grasp of logic, as evidenced by her marijuana comment. That’s the least of it.

Stay tuned to find out more about Sarah Gerard’s unintentionally comedic book Carrie Carolyn Coco.

Unknown's avatar

Published by Clarissa

62 thoughts on “Children of the Elite”

  1. Psychotic murderous violence is not something I associate with marijuana either. It is far more characteristic of a drug like meth. I would be quite skeptical of an explanation that just said it was a bad cocktail of chemicals and genes at work, and didn’t look at psychology.

    Like

    Reply

    1. “The most obvious way that cannabis fuels violence in psychotic people is through its tendency to cause paranoia— something even cannabis advocates acknowledge the drug can cause. The risk is so obvious that users joke about it and dispensaries advertise certain strains as less likely to induce paranoia… studies showing that marijuana use is a significant risk factor for violence have quietly piled up. Many of them weren’t even designed to catch the link, but they did. Dozens of such studies exist,”

      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6913867/#:~:text=The%20most%20obvious%20way%20that,less%20likely%20to%20induce%20paranoia.

      Many, many stories on the news because this phenomenon is on the rise but here’s just one:

      https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2024/01/31/what-is-cannabis-induced-psychosis-california-stabbing-reveals-dangers/72411293007/

      These stories always tell of a normal, law-abiding person suddenly losing it and attacking family members or neighbors in the most bizarre ways. And then going back to normal once the high passes.

      It’s surprising that there are people who don’t know about a dramatic increase in these episodes.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      2. And all that is before you get to the exciting and under-researched interactions between cannabis and other drugs, cannabis contaminated with other drugs (lost track of how many people told me “I was fine with smoking a joint now and then, except this one time: there was something else mixed in there…”), cannabis and pre-existing mental illness…

        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8307883/

        TL:DR Marijuana doesn’t get along well with SSRIs.

        https://nida.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/2023/05/young-men-at-highest-risk-schizophrenia-linked-with-cannabis-use-disorder

        -heavy cannabis use seems to be causally linked to some cases of schizophrenia. Maybe 30%.

        Like

        Reply

      3. Too much misinformation in those links to begin to tackle- Alex is rightly ridiculed for his book. Can’t you see how it’s 90% conjecture? There have been major, population wide studies of cannabis for over 150 years (he mentions the massive 3000-page Indian Hemp Commission report -at the time a majority of Indians used it in one form or another). Two others were 1940s NYC Laguardia study and Nixon’s 1972 commission, made up of his handpicked cronies who ended up changing their minds after extensive study much to his dismay (and he ignored their recommendations and kicked off the drug war against the American people instead because he hated hippies that much). 10,000+ NIH-funded studies have added nothing since then. They all came to the same conclusions, yet the “Reefer Madness” hysteria continues. The connection with violence continues to be extremely sketchy.

        1. yes, approximately 1% of users, probably predisposed, can have psychotic reactions
        2. around 9% of users become psychologically addicted or suffer from a lack of motivation
        3. No long term medical issues even with regular use, no cancer, no major societal problems, so prohibition is not justified.

        As far as “stronger weed” this is mostly because people aren’t smoking leaves and stems and unsexed plants. High quality bud (eg Panama Red and Maui wowee) has been available in the west for since the 70s and was used by elites in India along with hashish, which is pure resin. You just smoke less, which is a good thing. The one new thing that I concede is a concern is the marketing of edibles and a few other gimmicks- I agree these should be controlled in tandem with legalization. And yes, paranoia can be a thing and it’s not for everyone.

        The above reports and many others can be found online at the Schaffer drug library.

        Sybil

        Like

        Reply

      4. “It’s surprising that there are people who don’t know about a dramatic increase in these episodes.”

        I’m Australian and cannabis isn’t legal here (certainly not the way it is in Canada). So if this development is mostly a North American phenomenon, I suppose I haven’t noticed it in the flood of other news that comes from there.

        It does sound as if it has become *less* safe since commercialization. I found one source attributing it to the commercial development of ever-stronger strains.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

          1. also a big problem with edibles, since that isn’t even related to the THC content of the plant. It’s an extract.

            IIRC this stuff used to happen mostly with hash users, because that was the only way to get such a large dose. Variety of ways to get there now: way easier to eat a bunch of gummi bears than it is to smoke a sufficient quantity of bud.

            Like

            Reply

            1. I just explained all this above. Open your minds ladies. Read before attacking. 2% is barely above ditchweed btw, and hash was always available even to kids in 70s and normal way of use in UK (mixed with tobaaco). What is needed is education. With cannabis less is more. Most users overdo it and get tired or unwanted (if they are inexperienced) effects. Way too easy to do with edibles. As I said above I support restrictions on edibles and Alex B. would have been smart (and way more helpful) to focus on that. That is the only new element in 150 years and deserves attention (and “new” as far as easy availability-they were always available as hash and candies even in India and early experimentation in the west). But we can’t talk about it calmly & rationally because of all the hysterics. General prohibition is unwarranted as has been shown repeatedly, even by Nixon’s own commission, therefore the urge for it as expressed on this blog is an authoritarian impulse.

              “As far as “stronger weed” this is mostly because people aren’t smoking leaves and stems and unsexed plants. High quality bud (eg Panama Red and Maui wowee) has been available in the west for since the 70s and was used by elites in India along with hashish, which is pure resin. You just smoke less, which is a good thing. The one new thing that I concede is a concern is the marketing of edibles and a few other gimmicks- I agree these should be controlled in tandem with legalization.”

              Sybil

              Like

              Reply

              1. I am sometimes an inattentive reader. I was not attacking, just adding detail, I thought. If you felt attacked, that was a thing that was happening inside your own head, and perhaps worth taking a moment to examine.

                But I am not responsible for your feelings.

                Liked by 1 person

              2. “But I am not responsible for your feelings.”

                Please seek help for this need to over-dramatize and personalize everything.

                Like

  2. In a way, this writer shows a lot of ignorance and a weird sense of privilege, her parents are probably hippie types who don’t see anything wrong with smoking weed. I come from an immigrant family and if I smoked marijuana, my mom would have beat the crap out of me and thrown me out of the house. She’s terrified of drugs and when I was younger it was illegal in my state, the idea of her kids doing something illegal would have given her a heart attack.

    I don’t like the term privilege, but in a way it’s a sort of privilege that you can fool around with drugs and not get in trouble with the law or your parents since my folks would have thrown me out and called the police. She’s clueless if she thinks smoking marijuana is harmless, especially with the stronger strains out there that are pure THC. This is not the weak stuff from the 60s and 70s the teens in Detroit Rock City smoked, this is the stuff that can knock you out and make you crazy

    Like

    Reply

      1. In my experience in high school, it was the better-off kids who experimented with drugs since their parents were more indulgent and could get them out of trouble easier. The working class and immigrant kids either did no substances or just drank beer, I guess because their parents were stricter and the occasional beer isn’t too much. I did drink a bit as a teen, but that was while visiting my father and having beer while around family at a barbecue, it was not to get drunk. So smoking marijuana doesn’t appeal to me, especially since now some of the stuff is so strong it can cause psychosis. I’d rather drink, it’s legal and I know exactly what’s in the bottle

        Like

        Reply

  3. When I was a teenager and experimenting with drugs, I had a psychotic episode from weed. I had absolutely detached from reality and was seeing things in my mind that weren’t actually happening. Luckily, I didn’t hurt anyone, and had someone sober looking after me. I never had that happen again, and I at the time dismissed it as the weed being “laced” with something else. I stupidly continued to smoke weed for many years, often got feelings of paranoia, but never like that again.

    It is especially common to have psychotic episodes when you have a history of mental illness in the family and you are a teen. I’ve discovered this after researching the topic recently, remembering that uncomfortable night. Many psych nurses and doctors are aware of the connection, but for some reason it is not mainstream knowledge. People love to deny the marijuana has any negative side effects.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. The couple of times I smoked weed I became very paranoid and angry. In my (admittedly limited) experience, habitual users always warn that you can catch either the mellowing effect or the “noica”, which is the paranoid alternative. Nobody knows which one they’ll get.

      It’s strange to me that this isn’t more widely known because I have had the most tangential contact with that scene, but I did get warned both times by practiced users.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    2. Yes, it sounds like it was laced, which is not the same as a psychotic episode. It happened to me one time in London when I was around 20. A stranger passed a joint to me and I had a couple hits at most. Ended up tripping my ass off, lying on the floor of my friends grandmothers bathroom, upstairs from her pub, singing along with the people downstairs to keep myself grounded in reality. When her grandmother started banging on the door I managed to pull myself together enough to make it upstairs to bed. Learned my lesson!

      Like

      Reply

      2. i don’t think it was laced because several other people smoked with me that evening and had a normal high.

        Like

        Reply

        1. Who brought the weed? Your friends?

          Things don’t blend evenly in dry weed, you may have gotten most of it.

          In my case I had tripped before (it was the 70s) and I recognized the effects. Nonetheless it was scary- horrible thing to do to someone.

          Like

          Reply

  4. That’s precisely why I never experimented with drugs, I’m a hypochondriac and hate being out of control so the idea of being out of control and paranoid doesn’t appeal to me. I’ve never had anything stronger than alcohol and that’s on weekends and holidays in small doses, I don’t want to go crazy or end up in the hospital

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. When your parents did *all* the things in the 60s and 70s, being a teetotaller makes you a rebel 😉

      The ~3 times I have drunk anything more than 1 beer, it made me feel like crap. There’s something in wine that triggers migraines, and I find the alcohol buzz quite unpleasant. I have no idea what the appeal is.

      Other drugs… not remotely interested and never have been. There was never anybody I trusted enough to get high/drunk around when I was young. The idea of using that as a social lubricant among strangers and casual acquaintances is completely horrifying to me.

      Coffee remains my recreational drug of choice.

      Like

      Reply

  5. I am a teetotaler in every sense of the word and am kind of proud of it. Never tasted alcohol, never smoked, never did drugs and never felt the urge either. Actually, thinking a bit more “soberly” (pun intended!), more than pride I feel lucky/grateful to be born in a stable family where both from cultural and religious standpoints, consumption of such things is considered abhorrent.

    Thankfully, after coming to the US I came off my simplistic childhood view of alcoholics = bad people, teetotalers = good people, when I saw scholars I deeply respect (including my PhD advisor) waxing eloquent about wine tasting clubs, characteristics of good wine, and how/where the grapes should be grown etc etc etc. This was an eye opener that good, sane, intelligent people can choose to drink, and enjoy/celebrate it in socially acceptable ways, without turning into inebriated nuisances.
    However, I do not think evolution of my views will ever extend to drugs/marijuana, especially given the rampant PED/substance abuse I have witnessed first as a student, and now as a faculty, at the elite schools/Ivies.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. IMO the “oh a little weed/xanax/adderall/percs/etc won’t hurt you, it just makes the party better” crowd is exceedingly privileged never to have gotten up close and personal with the catastrophic social dysfunction of drug use in the lower income brackets.

      Like

      Reply

      1. You are probably right. I remember in my time there (not that long ago) Harvard/MIT did institute-wide surveys on drug use/addiction and sexual harassment and the results were so shocking (and prevalence of both these phenomena so high), that I recall, they put postcards and messages on the inner door in all restroom cubicles to encourage people to report or seek help. Drug and alcohol abuse was found to be endemic on both campuses and, not unrelatedly, 6 out of 10 women had reported being assaulted by someone they knew on campus in some such drug- or alcohol-fueled setting. It was a huge scandal (though results were never reported in media, expectedly!) and permanently changed my view of university campuses being safe havens with all the students being young naive idealists (again something which my sheltered upbringing had led me to believe).

        Liked by 2 people

        Reply

    2. When students casually shared with me the kind of drugging, pill-swapping and general self-narcotization during finals time, I stopped conducting final exams altogether because I don’t want to be the cause of something like this.

      Congratulations on your wonderful family and excellent health practices. I’m in great awe of this kind of families.

      Like

      Reply

      1. I find it hard to believe this. You’ve stated that you aren’t friends with your students, you keep it professional, yet they casually share with you that they are taking drugs and swapping pills for the exam?

        Like

        Reply

          1. Huh? Students don’t casually share this kind of information with professors they respect no matter how much they like them unless they have inappropriate personal friendships with them (hang out, drink together).

            Like

            Reply

            2. While I’m in a pretty touchy-feely department, I think there has been a shift in what students share and don’t share. I know I’ve traded a few notes with students about our respective anti-anxiety meds. (Lexapro each night, along with individual and family therapy.)

              Like

              Reply

              1. Students share a lot of stuff. This only surprises people who don’t do any teaching.

                I was once the first person to find out when a student had a positive pregnancy test and I talked her through the first, confused and terrified reaction. A year later she brought her baby in a stroller, and I felt partially responsible in a good way.

                Life happens. People talk. It’s not in the least shocking.

                Like

        2. The last thing I care about is what you believe. One would think you have been sentenced to be on this blog as punishment for a crime.

          Why not go somewhere where you do believe what’s being said without these infantile whinings?

          Like

          Reply

          1. Okay Queen Bee Clarissa. I’ll leave you and your little gang of sycophants to your usual circle jerk. As you wish!

            I understand that you are embarrassed that the most intelligent, informative comment on this thread was left by an occasional <gasp> cannabis user, so you now feel the need to lash out.

            I bet not one of the “intellectuals” here took the time to read those comprehensive historical studies I recommended. That would take intellectual curiosity.

            Like

            Reply

            2. If you are that defensive about your cannabis use, then you already know it is probably making your life worse. I have no hope you’ll read a rando on the internet and have a change of heart, but I’ve seen that a lot in person, and… it’s frustrating and sad how hard users resist seeing the thing that is obvious to everyone around them.

              Like

              Reply

              1. Give it a rest. Psychoanalyzing strangers on the internet is just sad. Don’t you have kids to take care of? Maybe get a hobby? You seem to live in this comment section.

                Like

              3. …contemplates logic of regular hostile commenter showing up in someone else’s combox, trying to evict regular non-hostile commenters…

                Would genuinely like to understand the motivation there. It doesn’t really compute.

                Liked by 1 person

    3. Alcohol IS a drug. And it leads to far more personal and social ruin than cannabis ever did. Both have been commonly used for thousands of years. Many drugs, including alcohol, cannabis, and psychedelics are also an important part of many religious practices worldwide.

      The desire for altered states of consciousnesses in humans is common and nearly universal. It starts in early childhood when kids like to spin around to make themselves dizzy.

      Lots of drugs are harmful, some devastatingly so, so it’s good to be discriminating but the virtue signalling on here is childish imo.

      And methylethyl for someone who claims to be autistic and to dislike talking to strangers it’s surprising that you simultaneously claim to be such an expert on what’s going on in everybody else’s head.

      Sybil

      Like

      Reply

  7. “the intellectual level of our creative elites”

    At what age are children expected to have a theory of mind? Cause…. she doesn’t seem to have it…

    Supposedly some on the autistic spectrum have the same problem but this weird insular worldview seems…. everywhere now.

    When it comes to perception/behavior altering substances (including alcohol and nicotine and painkillers and pretty much everything else). I agree it seems to be a pretty basic human drive (and also part of some extreme religious practices like fasting and praying for hours and hours on end).

    By nature, I tend to be an ‘everything in moderation’ kind of guy…. though lots of people have big problems with moderation. I think I’m what you might call the opposite of an addictive personality… except for caffeine… I’m a total addict and if I don’t dose myself in the morning I’ll have a miserable day.

    The few times I tried pot (less than a handful) it had…. no effect that I could perceive on me. On the other hand, potheads are very disagreeable to be around (esp the paranoia) and I dislike the cultural propaganda of it mellowing people’s personalities). I do enjoy alcohol (as long as the taste is interesting) in moderation but dislike being drunk.

    Like

    Reply

    1. The point isn’t even these substances but that an adult woman who teaches college thinks this is a good argument to make in public. It’s quite extraordinary that we encourage and reward such childishness.

      Like

      Reply

      1. “extraordinary that we encourage and reward such childishness”

        Infantilization…. is it an inescapable part of neoliberalism at present?

        So many adults act and talk like very small children, assuming that saying something makes it so and simply following the latest temptation or fad with no concern for anything… in small children it’s bearable (maybe charming in one’s own) but adults acting and talking that way is just…. repulsive….

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

    2. >The few times I tried pot (less than a handful) it had…. no effect that I could perceive on me.

      This is very common, I think the first few times may stimulate growth of cannabis receptors. Too bad you didn’t persevere, because for most (not all) it’s a very pleasurable and interesting high.

      >On the other hand, potheads are very disagreeable to be around (esp the paranoia)

      So you’ve had little experience with the drug but you’ve been around heavy, paranoid users enough to have a generalized dislike of them? How did that happen, I’m curious.

      Like

      Reply

      1. “Too bad you didn’t persevere”

        Sounds too much like work…

        “you’ve had little experience with the drug but you’ve been around heavy, paranoid users enough”

        basically…. yeah. It doesn’t take many for the pattern to emerge. There seems to be something about daily usage (rather than say once or twice a week or so) that makes people… really unpleasant.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

        1. It’s sad to observe the intellectual disintegration and the emotional dysregulation of habitual marijuana users. Even a once-a-week user presents a sad spectacle a couple of years in. That users themselves don’t notice their intellectual decline is one of the symptoms of the problem. I’ve seen formerly very brilliant people get intellectually blunted to the point where they would be shadows of their former selves.

          It’s very sad but it’s useless to explain to addicts why their addiction is destroying them. If they were capable of comprehending it, they wouldn’t be addicted.

          Like

          Reply

        2. Gee thanks for the snarky non-answer. Good on you though for getting another dose of judging and generalizing in. <pats Cliff on the head>

          Like

          Reply

          1. “Good on you though for getting another dose of judging and generalizing in. ”

            I don’t want to ban anybody but your being a shite to my readers will force me to start banning. Can you get yourself under control or do you need my help?

            Like

            Reply

    3. Theory of Mind is a weird, kludgy construct.

      We are all able to project our expectations on others, based on what is going on in our own heads. The problem with ASD is that what’s going on in your head is so wildly different from what’s going on in normal people’s heads, that when you project, you’re nearly always wrong.

      ASDs are actually quite good at theory of mind, as long as they are dealing with other ASDs. It’s always such a relief to meet one out in the wild. We have nice conversations.

      Likewise, when normal people try to project their own mental processes onto us, they are nearly always wrong.

      Normal people have just as much trouble with theory of mind as we do. They just happen to be the majority so it’s not a stumbling block for them.

      You could say nearly everyone has a problem with theory-of-mental-processes-different-from-one’s-own, and the degree of trouble you have with this, depends entirely on the degree to which your processes differ from those of the person you are interacting with.

      We’re talking here (the book) about mentally-normal people in a very insular environment where they never have to have any meaningful social contact with anybody who isn’t exactly like them. Perhaps they’ve never had any opportunity to exercise any theory-of-different-minds capacity?

      Like

      Reply

  8. It is very strange to me that people can witness an individual under the influence of pot, and see how mentally crippled they become, but still pretend this drug is somehow good for anyone.

    Maybe the guy who had terminal cancer would benefit from marijuana, but I do not for a second believe normal people do.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

Leave a reply to Pen Cancel reply