I thought people who smoked pot were supposed to be peaceful and non-violent, but the police report of the arrest of Ricky F. Russell reads like a Saturday night with the Manson family:

Around 9:15 p.m. Saturday, a man pulled a knife he carried in a sheath on a customer at the Circle K near East Golf Links and South Wilmot roads. The customer refused to give the robber what he wanted. The robber fled.

The victim saw the man drive away in a white Intrepid, recorded the license-plate number and notified the police.

Later, police believe the same man held a woman at knife-point and demanded her car at a nearby Diamond Shamrock. The woman’s boyfriend came out of the convenience mart and confronted the man, who fled in the white Intrepid.

A police helicopter was dispatched, and officers spotted the Intrepid near Pantano and Wrightstown roads. The three victims identified Russell, who was arrested.

Aggravated-assault detectives investigating the machete attack were called because Russell matched the description of the assailant, and the matching car gave officials probable cause to arrest him. Russell is being held on a $250,000 bond.

Police would not say whether they found the machete, but the knife used in Saturday night’s crimes was not the same weapon.

The three victims were teenage girls standing on a bus stop minding their business when Russell attacked and tried to kill one with a Machette:

Three teens were at a bus stop at East Grant Road and North Norris Avenue when a man attacked one girl.

The 17-year-old suffered cuts to her face, head and forearms. She was reported in critical condition at the time. Her current condition couldn’t be determined Sunday.

A second girl tried to intervene and was injured but not seriously, police said. A third girl was not hurt.

Before his rampage guess what his most recent arrest was for:

Russell was convicted of disorderly conduct in May 2007 and pleaded guilty to marijuana possession and drug paraphernalia possession in September, according to the Arizona Supreme Court Web site.

It’s almost as if chronic marijuana uses causes mental illness:

A study published in the British Medical Journal found those using cannabis before the age of 15 are four times as likely to develop psychotic illness by 26. A Lancet study in 2007 estimated that 14 per cent of 15- to 34-year-olds affected by schizophrenia are ill because of heavy cannabis use. And recent analysis of 35 major studies concluded that cannabis use increased the risk of psychotic illness later in life by approximately 40 per cent and by up to 200 per cent among heavy users.

Many experts in mental health say they now have more than enough evidence to understand that cannabis is not the safe drug of popular myth.

‘We have been campaigning for many years about the links between cannabis and psychiatric illness, and highlighting evidence that the drug may not only precipitate psychotic breakdown but cause long-term mental damage,‘ says Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity Sane.

‘The front-line experience of organizations such as ours is that use of the drug can cause harm, not only to young people but to their families, making the outcomes worse for those with mental illness and robbing young people of their motivation and future.’

I post this because “Tracey” from the heartland was quite unmoved by the case of Katreice Trujillo, the Meth user whose 3-month-old baby tested positive for Methamphetamine. The police seem to believe she gave the baby the Meth deliberately. “Tracey” wrote me this comment claiming I analyzed this story all wrong:

You’re an idiot. The positive effects legalization would have would not be instantaneous. You have no clue as to whether in this paticular instance it would still have happened if it were legalized. You cannot discuss specific cases and whether or not legalization would have made a difference. It’s the big picture and overall effect we are concerned with here. If you really think legalization would not have a positive effect then you are truly uneducated and ignorant on this subject. And just a small example, why do you think it is that in every place where drugs are legal or only minimally controlled, the crime rate and drug usage is DRASTICALLY less than places where they try to have total control over it and criminalize everything?

So “Tracey” is arguing that we don’t know if legalization would stop Meth heads from being bad mothers or Russel from going on a rampage. She never explains why Trujillo would suddenly become a responsible parent if the crystal meth she’s addicted to was legal, nor do I suspect she could work up a decent argument for why chronic drug users wouldn’t still lie, steal and have the occasional freak out. In fact, nobody can explain why legalization would cut crime because it simply isn’t true.

Drug users are drug users and whether we legalize drug use or not most will still be, pardon my language, sucking people off in alleyways to get money for their fix. Any person who tries to tell you pot smokers won’t degrade themselves to score some weed have never known any and haven’t seen the “sex for 420” ads on Craigslists.

I’m actually not against allowing people access to drugs, but I’m more for decriminalization than legalization, but I think the fantasy of a crime free drug culture is just that:  a fantasy. I think we should let drug users hit rock bottom as it’s the only way to get them off drugs and frankly a decade of kids seeing people destroy their lives openly and in public will do more to decrease drug use for future generations than a thousand Just Say No campaigns.

But repealing the prohibition of drugs won’t end crime, it’ll just end arrests for dealing and possession. Addicts will still need money and be unable to hold a job, dealers will still take the more attractive addicts and make them sex slaves and when mom and pop drug shops open up gangs will “tax” them and still profit from drug sales.

If legalization proponents admitted that they’d have a stronger leg to stand on at least morally. The argument for legalization is that adults need to make their own decisions, even bad ones, and must then pay the consequences. Legalization proponents don’t like that last part, so they hide behind a smoke screen of nonsense. We should let addicts live the life addicts live: degradation, violence and early death.