Seventeen more deaths because we won’t ask a simple question

AMID all the usual fuss about guns, important information about Nikolas Cruz, the alleged Florida shooter, is as usual obscured.

So here it is. The Miami Herald spoke to his aunt, Barbara Kumbatovic, who said: ‘I know he did have some issues, and he may have been taking medication.’ Other reports speak of him having received ‘treatment’ for mental problems – which almost invariably means powerful mind-altering drugs, often known to cause suicidal or violent thoughts.

Can I make this simple point again? The USA has always had freely available guns, indeed they used to be more freely available than they are now. It has had schools, and racialist fanatics too, for more than a century. Yet these school massacres are a feature of the modern era.

And what is new about the modern era? Two things: the widespread use of illegal mindaltering drugs, especially marijuana; and the even more widespread use of legal mindaltering drugs, especially SSRI ‘antidepressants’, but also steroids and ‘ADHD’ drugs, often amphetamines which are illegal in any other circumstances.

It was revealed the other day that the three London Bridge killers Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane, and Youssef Zaghba, had taken ‘large quantities’ of steroids before their crimes last June.

Steroids had also been taken by Khalid Masood, the Westminster murderer, and by Omar Mateen, the Orlando night-club mass murderer, and by Anders Breivik, the Norway mass killer.

Almost every terror killer in Europe in the past few years has been a cannabis user. You might also like to know that SSRI ‘antidepressants’ were used by at least one of the Columbine High School killers. The other’s medical records are sealed, though there are strong indications that he too was taking such pills.

This is nothing like a complete list. It would be longer still if the authorities showed any interest in this fascinating and important correlation, but as yet they do not.

Quite often, those who end up on prescription pills became mentally ill after using marijuana, which is increasingly correlated with mental trouble. Police nowadays no longer bother to pursue the crime of cannabis use, so it is quite possible for it to go unrecorded.

All this may be totally irrelevant. But then again, it may be important. In which case, we need to act. Once again, I offer these facts in the hope that someone in Government or Parliament will hold the inquiry into this connection which is so badly needed.