Trayvon Martin’s Marijuana Usage Made Him Violent Against George Zimmerman?
Did Trayvon Martin’s marijuana usage make him violent against George Zimmerman? Some reports are posing that controversial question now that marijuana legalization is quickly spreading across America. But while some police officers may support that contentious message others believe the controversy over Trayvon Martin, gun control, and drugs does not match up with the facts.
In a related report by The Inquisitr, George Zimmerman’s lawsuit claims NBC employees purposefully edited the audio recordings of him talking to the 911 dispatcher in order to make it sound like the Hispanic man was racially profiling Trayvon.
Whether or not Martin is a thug or an innocent has been a controversial topic that still echoes within political circles. For example, some focused on Trayvon Martin’s drugs and guns photos found in his cell phone records and how a whistleblower named Ben Kruidbos revealed these phone records only to lose his job due to Florida prosecutor Angela Corey. Zimmerman himself has been using his paintings to blast people he claims tried to hold back the negative information about Trayvon. On the other side of the argument, an artist in Boston recently admitted to installing a Trayvon Martin monument that attempts to make a connection to the Civil War and Trayvon’s father has been calling him a civil rights icon.
Now a report from TheBlackMan.com recently brought up Trayvon Martin’s marijuana usage and how the man was “suspended from school for possessing a trace amount of marijuana” and a “toxicological report found a trace amount of marijuana in Trayvon Martin’s system.” They point out that the defense in the George Zimmerman trial tried to make Martin out to be “edgy, aggressive, and violent” due to cannabis. In the end, the article claims there is “no evidence that marijuana use predisposes anyone to violent behavior” based upon studies.
But the Florida Sheriffs Association believes this conclusion to be false and they have launched a campaign against Florida’s marijuana legalization amendment vote that will occur this November. As part of this campaign, president Grady Judd claim he’s seen cases where marijuana and violence occurred:
“I see the guy that’s up all night with a baby that’s screaming, so he smokes him a blunt and a half and he thinks that’ll help and ends up bouncing the baby off the walls. I see the deputy that has to take the gun from the guy who is passed out as a result of having marijuana and other drugs in his or her possession.”
On the other side of the debate you have supporters of marijuana legalization who are pointing to how crime statistics are down in the city of Denver since legal weed became the norm in Colorado:
“[C]rime is down by 10.6 percent compared to January of this year. The biggest change is the number of murders, which has dropped by 52.9 percent. Overall, crimes rates in the Colorado city are down, although the number of crimes related to arson have jumped by 135 percent.”
Even other violent crimes like automobile break-ins and sexual assaults have dropped by 36 and 14 percent, respectively. But opponents of marijuana legalization claims there is no connection between the drop in Denver’s crime rate and the increase in marijuana sales.
Do you think Trayvon Martin’s marijuana usage had anything to do at all with his confrontation with George Zimmerman?