Mass Shooters & Drugs

Jared Loughner: After his high-school girlfriend broke up with him, Jared started to abuse/use Alcohol, Cannabis, Salvia Divinorum, LSD and Mushrooms. He quit using all of them in 2008, two years after he started and three years before the shooting.

Robert Steinhäuser: Used Cannabis, Valoron and MDMA (better known as Ecstasy) occasionally. At the day of the shooting, the police found an empty baggie with a Cannabis-Tobacco mixture in his jacket.

Robert A. Hawkins: Smoked Cannabis nearly daily.

Jeffrey Weise: Wrote at his online-journal under habitat: "Weed induced Coma" and also "Im mellow half of the time, mostly natural, but mostly drug induced as well (...)"

Michell Johnson: Stole Cannabis from his stepfather and used it, often.

Charles Andrew Williams: According to his own statement, Charles was addicted to Alcohol, Cannabis and Painkillers, during high-school.

Anders Behring Breivik: Took anabolic steroids during Adolescence. At the day of the attack, Breivik was on a mixture of ephedrine, caffeine and aspirin, called "ECA stack". Breivik told the police, he used a 50 percent higher dose, than its usual.

There's a couple of websites floating around addressing a similar sort of topic. Here's what I found.

Eric Harris: I don't think this one needs any explanation but: Zoloft then Luvox could we include Dylan's St Johns Wort?

Kip Kinkel: Put on Prozac for depression in 1997. In a counselling session he reported it was making him feel better.
In May 1998 he killed 4 people and Injured 24.

Matthew Beck: His father said he started taking three types of medication for depression, one reportedly included Luvox in January 1997.
Killed 4 people in March 1998.

Michael Carneal: A number of different websites report that he was taking Ritalin. Since the shooting he has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and has been hospitalized on a few occasions for psychosis. Carneal killed 3 and injured 5.

Thomas Solomon: Reportedly taking Ritalin. Wounded six.


I've also read somewhere that Luke Woodham was on Prozac at the time of his attack. Other sources just say he was taking an SSRI but don't name the drug. On a similar sort of topic I find it equally as interesting looking at the numbers of mass shooters that were in some kind of therapy at the time of their shootings.

Although Antidepressants and similar medicines are drugs, by strictly speaking, I would prefer to put them in the "Mental Illness and Disorders among Mass Shooters"-list, because they are used with a different intention and habitus, than "real" drugs and because, their effect is different to drugs: Instead of a short (in comparison) flush and high, you have a constant different consciousness.

Hale-Bopp wrote:

Although Antidepressants and similar medicines are drugs, by strictly speaking, I would prefer to put them in the "Mental Illness and Disorders among Mass Shooters"-list, because they are used with a different intention and habitus, than "real" drugs and because, their effect is different to drugs: Instead of a short (in comparison) flush and high, you have a constant different consciousness.

Ah I see, I misunderstood and thought you meant drugs as in medication as well.

I dont think recreational drugs made any of them do what they did, they probably used drugs to mask some problems and to feel better, I'd say ssri drugs contribute to some shootings, who knows though.

Dextromethorphan wrote:

I dont think recreational drugs made any of them do what they did, they probably used drugs to mask some problems and to feel better, I'd say ssri drugs contribute to some shootings, who knows though.

I also dont think, doing drugs made them shooters, but it could had been a part of their developtment. Like you said: who knows.

If anything these dudes didn't smoke enough grass. Would have helped them chill the fuck out. Could have helped Harris especially.

xmichaelmyersii wrote:

If anything these dudes didn't smoke enough grass.  Would have helped them chill the fuck out.  Could have helped Harris especially.  

Every drug has a different effects on different persons. Some people "chill the fuck out" on Cannabis, while others can get depressed, suicidal or psychotic.
I myself had some "Horrortrips" (severe panic in other words) on Cannabis- this drug has not always the relaxing and euphoric effect, for those its infamous.

Kimveer Gill drank Whiskey on the morning of the Dawson College Shooting.

Christopher R. Thomas Was high on coke when he did the 1984 Palm Sunday Massacre

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris can be seen smoking in the public videos and in the basement tapes, Eric can be seen smoking his "birthday cigar". Dylan also smoked weed with his older brother, but after the shooting, they only found trace amounts of Luvox in Eric's system.

Randy Stair was on Benadryl during the shooting.