BF2S Forums You be the judge! Trayvon Martin vs George Zimmerman

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Macbeth wrote:

Judge Debra Nelson ruled Monday that George Zimmerman’s attorneys will be able to present evidence about how Trayvon Martin may have been high on marijuana the night he was shot to death.

Martin’s toxicology report indicates that THC, the active drug in marijuana, was in his blood at the time of his death on Feb. 26, 2012.

Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch captain, is charged with second-degree murder for killing 17-year-old Martin in Sanford, Florida. He told police that night that the teenager looked suspicious and that there had been several break-ins in the neighborhood. The two got into a physical altercation, and Zimmerman said he was forced to draw his gun and kill Martin.

Read for yourself: Martin's autopsy

Zimmerman’s attorneys argued Monday that the report shows Martin’s judgment may have been impaired the night of the shooting, and it may have affected his decision-making.

Prosecutors fought hard against the admissibility of Martin's THC levels accusing Zimmerman's attorneys of trying to get bad-character evidence in through the backdoor.

>_<

kid smoked weed. he deserved it. the fact he is willing to break the law by consuming drugs shows that he is a danger to society. if he thinks he is so smart and special to not have the law apply to him, then we'll just revoke the law applying to his defense now. that's how criminals are treated. most weed smokers go on to try heroin and become violent black junkies, anyway. this guy would have murdered someone soon if zimmerman hadn't got him first. smoking weed is a character flaw and highlights your liability as a member of the public.

/dilbert

EM wants to shoot some black people

people would technically be pharmacologically more liable to get in a fight or altercation if they had recently had a coffee or some form of energy drink. or perhaps if hey had just eaten a lot of chocolate/candy and were having a blood-sugar spike. the american government should start doing caffeine toxicology tests to make sure people that get shot-dead in fights weren't hyper or agitated because of a mild stimulant high. because stimulants make you far more excitable (obviously) than weed or such like.

not to mention anyone with any alcohol in their bloodstream should be discounted, forever. alcohol is bellicose substance numero uno. serious character flaw. anyone who has an afternoon glass of wine or a beer in the sun deserves to be shot dead. were probably mouthy, slurring out some insults, looking for a fight.

this line of thinking really goes nowhere. all it is is a form of veiled puritan moralism.

AussieReaper wrote:

Smoking weed really makes people aggressive....

From the Police I know some of the worst people to deal with are apparently regular tokers who haven't had a joint for a day or two but have consumed a small amount of alcohol.

alcohol doesn't change people. tell that to anyone that grew up in an alcoholic household. tell that to anyone that has been in a fight in a club or on a saturday night high-street because a raging drunk guy thought you looked at his girlfriend the wrong way. look at any high street in britain on the weekends and it's full of police. guess that's because alcohol doesn't change people? ok. no behavioural change under the influence of alcohol.

and yes, i think you're stupid for pointing out social mores. that's because the law isn't there to legislate morality. especially when it's a southern states brand of christian tut-tutting morality. or outraged 40-year housewives gossipping. social mores are just that - irrational customs encoded in a group. the law is not there to enforce one morality upon another group. it's there to apply principles of justice. it is not just in any case to be killed without punishment because you toked on some weed. that is not proportional to any system of justice. sorry, try again, you fucking mong.

yeah man, but the withdrawal symptoms from weed are really insane!!!

dilbert is my favourite 'champion of science'. he'll talk all day about how great scientific proofs are, but then entertains ideas about black genetic-violence, i.e. the worst kind of faux-biological bullshit, and then talk about weed 'withdrawals' as if there's any sort of pharmacological fact (read: there's not). instead it's "my mates in the police". ah, yes. did you give anecdotes in your university exams?

Dilbert_X wrote:

Veritas in vino, alcohol does not change people.

bad attempt at troll

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

it is not just in any case to be killed without punishment because you toked on some weed. that is not proportional to any system of justice. sorry, try again, you fucking mong.

No-one has said it was just that he be killed because he toked on some weed, just that its reasonable that the jury take it into account during their deliberations in deciding whether he was murdered or killed in self-defence.
Sorry, try again, you ignorant drug-addled hipster.

Which article?

Zimmerman is entitled to a defence, if that defence is he was attacked by someone acting irrationally because they were affected by illegal drugs then so be it, its reasonable to put it to the jury and let them weigh the evidence.

If you don't habitually break the law you won't be treated as a habitual criminal, simple really.

Who said aggressive? I said irrationally.

Around 1 in 10 cannabis users have unpleasant experiences, including confusion, hallucinations, anxiety and paranoia. The same person may have either pleasant or unpleasant effects depending on their mood and circumstances. These feelings are usually only temporary- although as the drug can stay in the system for some weeks, the effect can be more long-lasting than users realise.

Wouldn't it be relevant if he were confused, or paranoid?

Anyway it seems you're wrong, again.

Teenagers who smoke cannabis are at an increased risk of delinquent and aggressive behaviour, the results of a new study indicate.

However the study also found that these teens are no more likely to become withdrawn or depressed, compared to any other teenagers.

A team of Dutch researchers looked at 5,551 young people, aged 12 - 16. Of these almost one in five had used cannabis in the previous year.

The team found that cannabis use was linked to 'externalising problems', in other words, delinquent and aggressive behaviour. However use of the drug was not linked to 'internalising problems', such as withdrawn behaviour, internal body complaints and depression.

According to the researchers, the more frequently cannabis was used, the stronger the link with aggressive behaviour.

"Cannabis use is associated with aggression and delinquency, but is not associated with internalising problems. Alcohol use and regular smoking were strong confounding factors", the team said.

Details of these findings are published in The British Journal of Psychiatry.

http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=8926

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2013-07-10 05:21:26)

if the law can prove 'beyond a reasonable doubt' (as all law should) that his being high had made him paranoid, as in actual proof rather than complete speculation (the paranoia and weed-freakouts are always referenced in schizophrenia arguments, but crop up empirically like 0.0001% of the time...) - if they can PROVE this, then sure, i'm not going to disagree. if a guy was having a paranoid freak-out episode then maybe he was posing a danger. however i'm willing to hedge my bets, oooh, i dunno, the other 99.99999% that this wasn't the case. all case details you have so far seem to say he was just walking along, minding his own business. the 'freakiest' thing about him was that he was wearing a hoodie in the wrong neighbourhood.

let's face it, here: they're trying to legislate morality. something the law is not there for. you cannot apply someone's moral standards or (irrational) social mores in a court of law 'just because' you don't like weed. people who rob banks don't get the death sentence, so you really cannot raise the fact a guy had a trace-amount of weed in his blood as a 'defense' for shooting him dead. trayvon is as much of a moral criminal as you are, with your minor driving offences and daily slips over than 40mph residential road limit. every time you've popped down the shops without a seatbelt - lucky the death-squad weren't there with their guns!

also from what i can see on that article, the 'association' is correlation, more than causation. there is no etiology there. very little pharmacological explanation. all i'm seeing is a study that points out that the 1 in 5 people who are likely to smoke cannabis are also probably the 1 in 5 of people from a social class or environment where 'delinquent' behaviour is more common. correlation is not causation. though i cannot access the journal, the press/abstract does not give any concrete info.

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-07-10 05:29:56)

What if Trayvon martin was shitfaced drunk?  Even violently shitfaced?  Does it make it okay for you to shoot him after the police tell you to GTFO?  If so I better call the police, theres a lot of drunks downtown stinking up the place.

Last edited by Spearhead (2013-07-10 05:36:26)