Dear Dr Goldacre,
You recently Tweeted that ‘Peter Hitchens says terrorists are on drugs and in the 1980s would’ve been in asylums’ adding the word ‘Jesus’, which you presumably intended as an expression of shocked disbelief, a sensation you assumed your readers would share.
I had the impression that you stood out for accuracy and careful evaluation, and rather admire you for doing so. Have you held to your own standards here?
Here are the ways in which your Tweet is inaccurate and/or misleading:
First, the timing. By the use of the present tense ‘says’ you imply (and in my view either intend your readers to believe, or don’t care if they do believe) that I am referring to Wednesday’s murders in Paris. You know perfectly well that I was not.
The blog posting (and column) to which you link http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2014/12/forget-evil-putin-were-th... date from 21st December 2014. They have nothing to do with the Paris attack, on which I have yet to comment because I lack sufficient knowledge.
Secondly, the failure to read with any care what I actually said:
The article refers quite specifically to three named so-called ‘lone wolf’ attacks. I have not heard or read anyone describing the Paris murders in this fashion.
The attacks I referred to were in Woolwich, Ottawa and Sydney. I accurately described the killers as ‘deranged maniacs’ ( see below) and said that ‘in most cases’ (the Sydney case is unclear) those involved were out of their minds on drugs. This is is a matter of record (see below).
Thirdly, you made something up. I said nothing about the 1980s, and the argument for which you attack me, and blaspheme about, is one which you would very probably support were it made by an ally of yours.
I said that in the days before ‘care in the community’ ( a policy dating back well before the 1980s, originating in the 1950s and particularly pursued when Enoch Powell was Minister of Health),such people would have been locked up in mental asylums. I think the 'Care in the Community' policy was a grave error, and believe better mental health services, including many more residential hospitals, would be a better and more effective use of our money than grandiose security services. Like you, I deplore the attempts to use terrorist outrages to strengthen the surveillance state (I see you rightly attack ‘The Sun’ for this in a Tweet today).
On the mental state of the Woolwich killers, I refer you to any good cuttings library, but there is a good summary of the position here in my column of 30th November:
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2014/11/theresas-right-we-do-face...
To save you too much trouble, here is the key passage (in what is mainly an attack on Mrs Theresa May’s authoritarian tendencies, with which I imagine you would agree):
‘Now, because the drug-crazed killer Michael Adebowale made an unhinged threat on Facebook, we are asked to support the secret-police surveillance of the internet.
On the same logic, we might as well allow MI5 to open all our letters, listen to all our telephone calls and bug our bedrooms, and for this creepy snooping to be allowed in evidence in court.
I don’t see how this differs from the powers given to the East German Stasi.
Not merely is this response crass and wrong, it is based on a total, wilful misunderstanding of the murder of Lee Rigby. We are looking in entirely the wrong direction, and so not seeing the blazing, illuminated signs which show what is actually going on.
Adebowale was obviously crazy when he committed his crime. An eyewitness, Cheralee Armstrong, told police he ‘looked mad, like he’d escaped from a mental hospital’.
During the trial of Adebowale, and of his accomplice Michael Adebolajo, newspapers received a very unusual warning from the judge that they must not report ‘the demeanour of the defendants’ on the video link from prison. What was it about their behaviour that prompted this strange instruction?
It wouldn’t be odd if they had behaved weirdly. Both killers were habitual users of cannabis, a drug increasingly correlated with mental disturbance, especially in young users. It was after Adebolajo began smoking the drug in his teens that his character wholly changed. Many sad parents of ruined teenagers will know about this process.
Adebowale had a history of serious mental illness, heard voices in his head, and was on anti-psychotic drugs while on remand. At one stage he had been recommended for treatment in Broadmoor.
A psychiatrist found him ‘paranoid and incoherent’, and said his symptoms were worsened by ‘heavy use of cannabis’.
Most people don’t even know this, as it doesn’t fit the ‘Al Qaeda plot’ storyline and has barely been reported.
Yet how can these gibbering, chaotic husks have been part of a disciplined, intricate terror organisation?’
The case of Michael Zehaf Bibeau, the Ottawa killer, is similar. I wrote on 23rd October, here
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2014/10/once-again-nobody-cares-t...
:
Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, as he called himself after changing his name, twice came up against the law on marijuana charges .
See here http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/10/23/alleged_gunman_michael_zeh...
He must have been pretty persistent to have this experience, given the reluctance of modern police forces to bother with this drug unless it is smoked under their noses (and not always then). Nothing of any significance happened to him as a result, of course ( despite the alleged draconian ‘War on Drugs’ under whose brutal dictates we supposedly groan).
Though not ill enough to be detained (since the Western world shut its mental hospitals by the dozen, preferring the neglect known as ‘ care in the community’ this is nowadays a very high bar, and few are) , his behaviour was clearly ‘erratic’, and the mosque he chose to attend didn’t seem very keen on him.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/suspected-killer-in-ottawa-...
The case of Man Haron Monis, the Sydney murderer is equally clearly that of a severely mentally ill person, a serial fantasist, exhibitionist, persecution maniac and writer of distressing letters to the relatives of dead soldiers, who had threatened to shoot his wife. I have seen no information about his drug use. Media tend not to seek such details actively, since the correlation between the use of mind-altering drugs and such crimes, though strong, has yet to trouble the world’s newsrooms. Even so, my point is perfectly reasonable and fact based.
I think you owe me a public apology, and intend to post this letter on my blog where others may see it. I am more than happy to publish any reply you care to send in the same place.
Yours most sincerely,
Peter Hitchens
