Lars Larson: Was legalizing magic mushrooms a good idea?

By Lars Larson,
NW and national radio host,

The joint experiment with drug legalization in Oregon and Washington seems to be flying along.

If you don’t believe me, just ask the 83 attempted murder victims from that Horizon Airlines flight.

Their trip got diverted to Portland when an off duty pilot who took his first magic mushrooms attempted to shut down both engines and force the plane to glide to the ground somewhere between Astoria and Portland

Or you could quiz the prosecutors pursuing murder charges against James Kelly, who shot up a concert in the Columbia Gorge last summer, killing two and wounding four.

He also admitted to using magic mushrooms.

And then this from today’s Daily Dead Fishwrapper, Oregonlive, “A Portland man who gunned down his friend and his friend’s girlfriend inside an Old Town apartment two years ago said his escalating meth use conjured an imaginary force that compelled him to pull the trigger. Michael S. VanDomelen was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years under the terms of the plea deal approved Monday by a Multnomah County Circuit Court judge.”

Recreational drugs kill hundreds of people in Oregon and Washington by overdose…with deaths up dramatically in the last few years after de facto legalization of hard drugs.

It seems state lawmakers have not seen the body bags pile up deep enough yet to justify any big changes in the law.

And the pilot accused of the attempted mass murder of 83…he says he took his ‘shroom 48 hours before he tried to crash the plane.