West
This woman suffered marijuana-psychosis. She says Bryn Spejcher and the man she killed were both victims
An anti-marijuana advocate accused California lawmakers of valuing the cannabis industry’s profits over Americans’ health and the media of intentionally keeping the drug’s risks hidden from the public as recreational use grows across the country.
“Where are the messages that say this can increase your risk for depression, anxiety, psychosis, schizophrenia, increases the risk of suicide?” said Heidi Swan, a board member for Parents Opposed to Pot and a victim of marijuana-induced psychosis. “Where are those billboards? Where are those warning labels on the product? There are none.”
The health care data analytics firm Truveta recently reported that there is a “complex relationship between cannabis use and mental health disorders.” The Jan. 11 study found a nearly 50% increase in marijuana-induced psychosis emergency department visits between 2019 and 2020. A May study published in Psychological Medicine found that up to 30% of schizophrenia diagnoses in men ages 21 to 30 could have been prevented if the individuals had not been heavy marijuana users.
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But Swan said research and testimonies from doctors have been “dismissed by our elected leaders, have been dismissed by public health organizations, have been dismissed mostly by the media.”
Swan attended the recent trial of Bryn Spejcher, a 33-year-old who stabbed her date over 100 times before stabbing herself in the neck during a cannabis-induced psychotic episode. Spejcher was a novice user of marijuana who testified she didn’t know the potential side effects of THC.
Both Spejcher and the man she killed, Chad O’Melia, “are victims of the marijuana industry and of the state of California” because they weren’t properly warned, Swan said.
The anti-marijuana advocate worked with California lawmakers on two bills that would have added regulations on cannabis sales. The Cannabis Right to Know Act, introduced in 2022, proposed putting warning labels on all THC products to inform buyers of health and safety risks. The Cannabis Candy Child Safety Act, brought forward last year, sought to regulate cannabis candy packaging to protect against attracting unassuming children.
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Bryn Spejcher was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in December but received no prison time after killing her boyfriend while having an episode of cannabis-induced psychosis. (Ventura County District Attorney)
“We have huge public health campaigns about DUIs. We know these things, that if you’re impaired, you should not drive,” Swan said. “There is no warning about that with marijuana.”
The Cannabis Right to Know Act died awaiting a House vote, while Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill aiming to prevent kids from ingesting THC candy.
“They were educated all along the way. All of them heard stories that I am sure they would rather not have heard. And in the end, the bill was pulled due to pressure from the industry,” Swan told Fox News. “So, we have no protections in California. We have no warnings about the mental health harms.”
A 2022 Los Angeles Times investigation uncovered corruption in the cannabis industry, with businesses bribing some Golden State lawmakers in exchange for licenses and more lenient regulations. As a result, state officials launched an audit to end the illegal activity, but Swan said the revenue stream coming from the booming industry still overshadows any interest in public health.
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Lawmakers aren’t “looking at the ledger properly,” she said. “They’re looking at tax revenue, but they’re not looking at the costs. And there are incredible costs.”
“The state of California is more interested in the health of the marijuana industry than they are of their own citizens,” Swan told Fox News.
Swan helped draft two bills that would have added warning labels to cannabis products and restrict companies from packaging THC-infused candy in a way that children could mistake. (David McNew/Getty Images)
Despite a recent influx of reports linking psychiatric symptoms with the drug, an August study published in Psychiatry Research tracked 210 teenagers and young adults and found that continuous cannabis use over two years did not increase risks of transitioning into psychosis or worsening clinical symptoms, overall neurocognition, or functioning levels.
Since 2012, 24 states have legalized marijuana for adult recreational use. Despite her personal experiences with the substance, Swan voted in favor of legalization during the 2016 California election, thinking it would be easier to regulate.
“California rolled out legalization without any thought to public health,” she said. “It’s one of the narratives of the industry. ‘Legalize it so we can regulate it.’ And then you try to regulate, and they come in with all their money and all their influence and just smash it down.”
Swan had never heard of cannabis-induced psychosis — a possible side effect of marijuana use that includes episodes of delusion, hallucinations and loss of contact with reality that are associated with conditions like schizophrenia — until she experienced it when she was a teenager in the early ‘90s.
“I lost touch with reality, and it was really scary, so I stopped using it,” she said in a previous interview with Fox News. But her brother, K. Anderson, once enjoyed the “fun house” effect the drug gave him and continued to use marijuana “from the time he was in middle school until he got his graduate degree,” Swan said.
“He went on to try crack and became a homeless drug addict with schizophrenia,” she added. “He was lost to us for a decade.”
Swan said the public is not being properly educated about the potential side effects of cannabis, and are instead being marketed the drug by big businesses and celebrities. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
Swan and her brother finally reconnected when Anderson contacted his sister after finishing a year in jail and receiving treatment in a rehab facility. It wasn’t until almost a year later that Swan realized her brother suffered from an undiagnosed mental illness.
The pair wrote a book loosely based on Anderson’s life, “A Night In Jail,” to raise awareness about the risks of marijuana usage.
Swan said tragedies like the Spejcher case are just “a foreshadowing of what’s to come” if cannabis continues to be marketed to the public as safe.
“The celebrities, the athletes, the musicians who are all fronting marijuana companies, they post on social media themselves using and tell young people that it’s cool and that it’s safe. They should be held accountable somehow for their misrepresentation,” Swan told Fox News.
“How does a prevention advocate stand up against that kind of marketing, that kind of appeal to youth?” she added. “The least our government can do is to put out basic information to counter that.”
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Wyoming
At 6,000-year-old crossing, Gov. Gordon OKs Wyoming’s first-ever designated pronghorn migration route – WyoFile
SUBLETTE COUNTY—Gov. Mark Gordon heralded Wyoming’s first-ever designation to protect a pronghorn migration corridor — a more than 2 million-acre web of habitat — at Trapper’s Point, which he called a “wonderful passageway.”
“How incredibly valuable it is that you are standing here today,” Gordon told the crowd, “to witness this remarkable moment.”
Gordon commemorated the moment with his feet planted on the narrow bulge of high country that splits the Green and New Fork rivers. Thousands of years ago, the site was a well-used hunting ground for Native Americans — it’s the earliest known killing and processing site for pronghorn in North America. Now it boasts a wildlife overpass.
No pronghorn were to be seen during the especially windy Friday afternoon gathering, which attracted 75 attendees from nearby Pinedale and other western Wyoming communities.
Now Trapper’s Point is officially classified as a “bottleneck” for the Sublette Pronghorn Herd — one of 13 such bottlenecks. That classification is supposed to prevent any surface-disturbing activity, with the intent that pronghorn can keep passing through Trapper’s Point for generations to come.
Protecting the ability of the fleet-footed, tawny-and-white ungulates to migrate is a “key factor” in sustaining their population, Wyoming Game and Fish Director Angi Bruce said.
“This becomes even more important in severe winters or extreme droughts,” Bruce said. “Pronghorn are long overdue for recognition.”
Pronghorn in Sublette, Teton, Sweetwater and Lincoln counties travel a long road — some migrate more than 200 miles to escape harsh winters, trekking south into the lower Green River Basin, a semi-arid sweep of sagebrush steppe between Pinedale and Rock Springs. Then in the spring, they retrace those paths, returning to summer ranges, lush with verdant vegetation, even going as far as Grand Teton National Park.
There was also a long road of bureaucracy to get to this point.
Nearly three decades of effort preceded the formal designation of the migration routes used by the Sublette Pronghorn Herd, which is the farthest-traveling and among the largest pronghorn herds in the West.
Jackson Hole biologists long knew that the valley’s pronghorn left in the winter. But details were hazy on where they went and how they got there until around the turn of the century. Using data from tracking collars, biologists like Joel Berger, Steve Cain, Hall Sawyer and Doug Brimeyer helped delineate the route.
In 2008, a Bridger-Teton National Forest plan amendment established a portion of the path as the nation’s first designated wildlife migration corridor.
Popularized by its branding as the “Path of the Pronghorn,” the route has received press in national publications like High Country News and the New York Times.
But the southern reaches of the migration through the energy-rich Green River Basin have faced major political opposition since the early 2000s. Wyoming first attempted to protect those travel corridors in 2019, under a policy administered by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. That effort was halted after a coalition of industry trade groups and counties protested.
Then, in early 2020, Gordon revamped the migration policy with an executive order. Still, the Sublette Pronghorn Herd proposal gathered dust, even as development threatened the route.
Game and Fish revived efforts to protect the migration in late 2023 and early 2024. Biologists pulled together one of North America’s most comprehensive migration datasets, benefiting from approximately two decades of GPS collar information collected from more than 400 pronghorn.
Some controversy followed the process until near the end. There was a debate about whether to designate the migration’s two easternmost segments, in the Red Desert and east of Farson. The Game and Fish Department proposed excluding the routes, but was overridden by its commission. Then Gordon upended that decision, excluding the two segments.
Vetting the migration corridor through a Gordon-appointed working group was the second-to-last step in the designation process.
“Today’s designation demonstrates that voluntary, locally driven conservation works,” said Robb Slaughter, who chaired the group, during the commemoration at Trapper’s Point.
Time will tell if that’s the case. Wyoming’s migration policy is, by design, permissive of development. Private land is exempt from protections, and designation is not an assurance that new stressors won’t be added to the landscape.
“Today is not the end of the process,” Slaughter said. “It’s the beginning of the next chapter. Continued monitoring, adaptive management, research, and cooperation will ensure these recommendations remain effective as conditions change.”
But Friday was the end of the migration designation process. The governor’s informal OK — no signature was needed — was the last step, said Sara DiRienzo, the governor’s deputy policy advisor.
Wildlife advocates celebrated the moment.
“This is historical,” Bruce said. It’s the first effort to protect the full length of a pronghorn migration corridor in the nation, she said.
San Francisco, CA
Newlyweds celebrate Pride-themed weddings inside SF City Hall as parade preparations underway
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — On Friday in San Francisco, hundreds of newlyweds began the next chapter of their love story at City Hall.
As they got married inside, Pride preparations were also underway outside of City Hall.
These Pride-themed City Hall weddings were all happening as the setup for the Pride celebration at Civic Center were wrapping up in preparation for Pride Saturday and Sunday.
More than 250 couples arrived for Pride Friday, some of them getting commemorative Pride marriage licenses.
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Couples like Chris Parker and Jared Duensing got a very special officiant: San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie.
“This is such a wonderful day, and so happy to finally be married after four years of knowing each other in such a wonderful location. Being married by the mayor was so special,” said newlywed Chris Parker.
“Just happy and excited for those couples, and I’m happy and excited for our city to show off what makes San Francisco so great — and our LGBTQ+ community is a huge part of why San Francisco is so special,” Lurie said.
All of this leads to a huge weekend in San Francisco.
The stage being set up just outside of City Hall will mark the end of the parade route — but there’s a lot happening before that.
MORE: San Francisco Pride insiders reveal their must-know tips for the weekend
On Friday afternoon, the annual Trans March takes place at Dolores Park.
On Saturday, both the Trans Ally March and Rally and the Dyke March will take place.
On Saturday, performers will start taking the stage at Civic Center Plaza starting at noon.
All of this, of course, is leading up to Sunday’s big parade when thousands will line Market Street.
Zach Fuentes will be hosting SF Pride Parade coverage only on ABC7 Eyewitness News this Sunday with Drew Tuma, Cameron Bopp and Tara Campbell — as well as with our community guest hosts.
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