DMT, meth, and a Mercedes are quite a combo:
A Los Angeles County coroner’s autopsy found traces of amphetamine and marijuana in the body of journalist Michael Hastings, according to a report released Tuesday.
But the drugs were unlikely to have contributed to the fiery crash that killed Hastings, the report stated. Hastings was unlikely to have been intoxicated at the time of his death.
Hastings died instantly of “massive blunt force trauma consistent with a high speed front-end impact to the sole of the right foot and to the front of the torso.” The impact of the crash, not the resulting fireball, is what killed him.
Hastings had started using drugs after 14 years of being sober, his family told investigators. A brother said that Hastings was “currently using DMT,” an extremely potent but short-lasting psychedelic drug. He also had a medical marijuana card.
DMT, aka Dimethyltryptamine, aka the “Businessman’s Trip,” is not light stuff.
*** Update ***
You know what- the first comment here is right. This will just PROVE how deep the conspiracy goes that even the coroner is involved in the scam…
different-church-lady
Are you kidding? I can hardly wait to hear how Obama and Holder got the speed into his body after the crash.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
That Should End Those Conspiracies
nah, but it will tamp some of them down.
A real shame. He was a talented and admirable reporter.
The prophet Nostradumbass
This is just evidence of The Coverup.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I read the comments at the link. Mere facts are never enough to put down a good conspiracy.
Again, as one of the people here who has actually driven on that stretch of Highland, it’s completely plausible to me that someone driving in the early morning at high speed would crash at that transition between wide open, four-lane road and divided two-lane street. But, hey, what do I know, I’m just someone who drove that same route dozens of times when I was doing an internship.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
Obviously, Obama and Holder got to you, too, and implanted false memories of driving along that route.
You can’t stop the crazy. You can only point and laugh at it.
Villago Delenda Est
That Should End Those Conspiracies
John, you’re way too old now, and too experienced, to utter something as both naive and jejune as this…
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
The actual autopsy (yes I’m that morbid) has some gruesomely graphic descriptions, but notes that death was instantaneous, and was most likely preceded by an LOC. The LA Times put up the report, but be warned.
Sad all around, but he’d been partying for a bit (witness statements) and was clearly driving very, very fast.
Roger Moore
The LA Times is reporting that he was probably suffering from PTSD related to his war reporting; he had a medical marijuana card that was given for PTSD. I wonder if the crash was a suicide. High speed single car crashes often are, and it would be consistent with somebody having a severe crisis.
Mnemosyne
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Sorry, what’s an LOC?
dp
LOC = loss of consciousness.
Sad.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Mnemosyne: Sorry, loss of consciousness.
cthulhu
@Roger Moore: Yeah, I think high speed solo crashes are often the result suicidal impulses but that end up being ambiguous because the event doesn’t seem so planned as with other methods such as firearms, drugs, or jumping.
Has DMT made a comeback? That drug was fairly rare in its heyday in the sixties.
Villago Delenda Est
Is it possible that he was coming of the buzz and that triggered a PTSD episode and in the situation he just lost it, and control of the vehicle?
Wild speculation, but given what he experienced…
Jim
I didn’t think there was a test for DMT due to its similarity to all the other serotonin-like molecules in the body, but having done the stuff, I can’t see how anyone could even get into the car, much less make it out of the driveway. I’m not sure I even agree that it’s heavy stuff in light of it having no crappy comedown or hangover. In any event, they look for metabolites, so this doesn’t imply that he was under the influence of any of them at the time – again, driving on DMT is gonna be about as successful as this classic attempt to drive on salvia.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim:
How long do traces of the drug remain in the body, though? I know with marijuana that you’re going to test positive a month after your last use.
Roger Moore
@Jim:
If you look for the molecule itself rather than metabolites, you should be able to tell it apart. Hyphenated tandem mass spec techniques are very powerful for that kind of thing.
James E. Powell
The coroner found trace amounts and stated that the drugs were unlikely to have contributed to the crash. So why all the chat about drugs?
Tired driver at high speed is more than sufficient to explain a crash. It could have been worse.
Jim
With DMT, I guess it depends on the route of administration, but we’re talking on the order of hours – THC lingers because it’s fat-soluble; DMT, being so close to the same neurotransmitters that are released and degraded in the time it takes you to tap a key on your keyboard, is broken down by the body so rapidly that it has to be either smoked (in which case the effects last like 5 minutes) or taken in combination with an MAOI (in which case it lasts several hours).
Either way, I don’t believe there’s even any scientific literature in support of a way to detect it. Really not buying this claim at face value at all. Not saying the coroner is in on a conspiracy, just seems like BS. Even a mass spec for the molecule itself seems crazy given the pharmacokinetics involved – the half-life is probably under 5 minutes, and there’s an extremely rapid uptake from the blood to the brain.
Roger Moore
@James E. Powell:
The drugs are interesting because his abusing them is an indication of his general mental state. He had apparently had drug problems earlier in his life, straightened out, and just started up again recently. That’s a sign that he was in some distress, apparently PTSD.
Villago Delenda Est
@James E. Powell:
Agreed.
However, the drug angle is sizzle that you sell, rather than the boring old steak.
Keith P
Interesting factoid about DMT – you can order the roots of the ayahuasca plant online. Legal to buy and grow. (IIRC, you can also still order magic mushroom spores online, but it’s not legal to grow the spores)
trollhattan
Lead was a conspiracy, as was tobacco. H/T LGM
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/19/fracking-debate-lead-petrol-harmful
Tripod
Anyone open to the possibility that he was just a jackass who grossly overrated his mad driving skillz?
Mnemosyne
@James E. Powell:
Mostly because he was an admitted alcoholic and drug user who had recently relapsed. Some reports said that his brother (who he was supposed to meet at the airport) was flying in to convince him to go back to rehab.
G read Hastings’ book long before this happened and was completely unsurprised (saddened, but not surprised) because Hastings has an entire chapter about a weeklong bender he went on in Dubai, mixed with musings about the kind of person who becomes a war correspondent. Hastings was a very smart and talented guy, and he was able to write about his own self-destructive streak even if he was unable to solve it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@James E. Powell:
Nonsense, as you can see the car struck the fifth palm at a 32′ angle. How much clear can They make it? Wake up Shepple.
Irony Abounds
@James E. Powell:
It could have been worse? I dunno, death seems pretty high on the scale of bad things to happen.
Mnemosyne
@Irony Abounds:
That whole part of the street is residential — in the original video that was posted on LA Weekly, one of the residents was out on his lawn hosing down the street so no one’s house caught fire. If this had happened later in the day, another car or someone’s kid could have been in the path of Hastings’ car.
So, yeah, it could have been worse — Hastings could have taken other people with him.
James E. Powell
@Irony Abounds:
There could have been other cars, other people minding their own business. Even late at night, that part of LA is not exactly deserted.
AxelFoley
Wait, there’s people that think President Obama and Atty. General Holder had this guy offed?
Right wing loons or left wing loons?
ruemara
Didn’t Dick Van Dyke’s fancy car burst into flame from some car trouble? You don’t need conspiracy when drugs and a crash will do just as well. RIP, Mr. Hastings. I’m sorry life hurt you so bad and no one was there to help you stay out of that car and away from the drugs.
I smoked it once
@Jim: Agree — I found it fascinating and compelling but also totally incapacitating. You go bye-bye for about five minutes (or an indeterminate time subjectively). Amazing trip, but once was enough.
Narcissus
Drug use just cements the conspiracy.
Next you’ll tell me they found pornography and a gun in the glove compartment.
Also Al Jazeera America does rock
bago
N,N-DMT or 5-MeO-DMT? Either way you metabolize the crap out of that stuff and are chemically baseline in minutes. Now the Alpha variant….
However, car accidents are FAR more lethal than tryptamines and cannabinoids.
Edit: What Jim said.
bago
Hay Zeus de Cristo! He hit that tree HARD! The engine was ejected from the car.
Anya
I will just remember him as a talented and a dedicated reporter who earned respect and admiration.
But why is Obama supposed to hated him, didn’t he do him a favor when he exposed General Mcchrystal?
sherparick
@trollhattan: I think one could argue that just elimination of lead has paid for the entire cost of environmental regulation of everything these last 40 years, times 2. But because no one has made a buck on it to their personal profit, while it has cost the lead miners and the petrochemical corporations a couple of pennies off their profits, along with proving the benefit of Government, particularly Federal regulation, and the way the U.N. works a massive welfare benefit throughout the world, this causes a Sad for Randian Overlords at National Review.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/337398/lead-and-crime-jim-manzi
jon
The Illuminati, Berlin Motor Works, NSA, and Rolling Stone did it using remote access via onboard computers and Perez Hilton’s spy network. Colonel Mustard was unavailable for comment.
PopeRatzo
You posted it, but you didn’t read it.
So, this important news that completely exonerates the Obama administration from ever having done anything wrong, ever, really adds nothing to the story but the smear of a dead man and casting of doubts on any story he ever wrote.
Soon, we’ll hear about how Aaron Schwartz was a serial masturbator and Edward Snowden has gender issues. Oh wait, they already used that one on Brad Manning.
Tripod
@bago:
I’ve seen estimates of 60 mph, and this wasn’t on a multi-lane, mega arterial with limited cross streets. He was bombing down a tight city street without regard to anyone’s safety. Whatever the other aspects of his life, and pre-meditated or not, this was a dick move.
Thlayli
@PopeRatzo:
Not sure if serious, but just in case:
“They” being Manning’s defense counsel.
Jack the Second
The thing about the armies of ninja assassins the tinfoil brigrade sees behind every tragic accident is that they would almost make things better. It would be something we could fix. Expose it and there would be public outcry, indictments, resignations from every level of government. People would go to jail. Journalists would win awards. There’d be a blockbuster the next summer and fourteen TV movies the next week.
The government doesn’t need ninja assassins. They can destroy you through their utterly boring, utterly unstoppable steamroller of “being the government”. My favorite was the executive who broke the government’s heart by refusing to go along with their secret domestic spying. After cutting all of the secret contracts to the company — which the executive was party to but forbidden to disclose — they put him in jail for insider trading. You see, he had bought & sold stock during the many years these secret contracts existed, which gave him non-public knowledge, and therefore, he was insider trading. He went to jail and no one gives a damn.
You can be shot dead in your own home when the police bust down your door on a no-knock warrant for the house next door. It was a reasonable mistake for the police to make, it was quite dark and it’s not like they can knock and ask first on a no-knock raid, and anyway it was your own fault for scaring those poor police officers like that. Why does the government need ninja assassins?
Lol
@Thlayli:
Just proves Obama got to Manning’s defense attorney.
Jess Sane
@AxelFoley: Right wing loons or left wing loons? At this point, there’s getting to be less and less of a difference. There’s one degree of separation between Wikileaks and David Duke.
negative 1
@cthulhu: Yes, it has among the youth of today. People like the fact that it doesn’t last all night. Still, it’s a long few minutes, and all psychedelics have the potential for disaster.
roc
@James E. Powell:
Because it said “amphetamines” and there aren’t a whole lot of responsible amphetamine users.
The chat about pot and DMT — if he wasn’t high at the time — is neither here nor there. That’s just a thorough medical report and the tabloid press doing what they do.
But his being back on amphetamines blows the whole foundation of suspicion. The (conspiracy) theories all rest on: “why would a (sober) journalist be tearing down a residential street for no reason?” But he wasn’t (sober). He was clearly in a very bad place making very bad decisions.
kindness
DMT….yea I’ve done it. Ever do nitrous oxide? DMT lasts about as long as a nitrous balloon. Our bodies have lots of enzymes in them that immediatly break it down so unless you’ve eaten an enzyme blocker (which is what the early beat poets did) you get this intense psychedelic experience that lasts about a minute or two. Usually smoked. Tastes awful. It is so intense it freaks some out but it’s so quick they come back to earth almost right away. I could not imagine walking around for 6 hours under that influence. But some folks have done it. Not me.
kindness
@negative 1:
While that is potentially true I know way more folk that had positive life experiences with the stuff than those I saw who had disasterous experiences. Yes I’ve talked more than a couple of friends down but that is how we handled it back in the 70s. But I also had a whole bunch of insights and fun that I otherwise would never have been able to comprehend. I don’t recommend people do drugs. But if you are going to do them, there are ways to do them responsibly.
The Moar You Know
It’s quite the autopsy report. He hit hard enough to break his neck, his skull (Dale Earnhart/hangman’s fracture) and to tear his heart loose. The engine tore loose from the car and ended up in the next block’s intersection. Lower right side of his body from his foot to his pelvis all broken – he had the pedal mashed to the floor hard. Draw your own conclusions.
No mention of airbags. Don’t know if the car had them. Sometimes they won’t go off if you hit a tree/pole.
Probably not possible to die any more quickly than he did.
T. Scheisskopf
Moral of the story: Don’t play craps with your brain. You need it.
Admittedly, some more than others.
daniel thomas macinnes
This is the longest DMT discussion in history not to name-drop Terence McKenna. Weird. And, technically, we’re all guilty of holding DMT, as it’s a neurotransmitter in the brain.
Li
Well, one of those loons is the former U.S. National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism Richard Clarke:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/24/michael-hastings-car-hacked_n_3492339.html
But, I’m not sure he can be pinned as a left wing or right wing loon as he worked under both the Bush and Clinton administrations. And hacking a new car in the way he described is technically possible. But that would require a conspiracy, and as we know, no one ever conspires to murder anyone. Murders are always totally above board, non-secret affairs. And of course, the coroner says that he was ‘unlikely to have been intoxicated at the time of his death’ so drugs (including a neurotransmitter that is in everyone’s brain) definitely explain it. Case closed.
the Conster
@daniel thomas macinnes:
The Archaic Revival is one of my all time favorite books. The guy had some really interesting theories.
Joey Giraud
@Li:
There’s a strong need to deny that the world can contain competent bad actors.
These “let’s make fun of tinfoil” threads are most echo-chambery.
lethargytartare
@Joey Giraud:
There’s a strong need to deny that the world can contain random, meaningless, death.
These “it must be foul play” threads are most puerile
Joey Giraud
@lethargytartare:
Heh. I see what you did there.
Matt McIrvin
It’s always the question. Given that there are real conspiracies that operate in the world, but there are also a lot of really stupid conspiracy theories, how do you make the distinction?
I think the standard observation is that if evidence comes in that’s against the conspiracy, and the reaction is not to refine the idea in any way but just to make the imagined conspiracy bigger so it can fake the evidence, you’re probably dealing with someone who is immune to having their ideas tested in the real world. Conspiracies can fake evidence but not without limit.
I have other guidelines. I’ve heard a lot of them that have some scientific angle. As a general rule, any idea that requires the conspiracy to successfully cover up secret laws of physics for more than a couple of years is probably a non-starter. The Manhattan Project, through extreme wartime secrecy, did manage to keep the Nazis from learning some details of critical masses and such… but not the Soviets.
Mnemosyne
@Li:
So, just to be clear, you find it more plausible that his car was hacked than that he got into an accident driving at 4:00 am in an unfamiliar area at speeds exceeding 100 miles an hour?
Tell me, how many times have you driven through that intersection? As I said above, I’ve done it dozens of times, and I find the account of the accident completely plausible. How many times have you been there? Just a round number is fine.
Ilya
How did Hastings afford a Mercedes? I don’t think Rolling Stone pays its journos THAT well…
Ilya
How did Hastings afford a Mercedes? I don’t think Rolling Stone pays its journos THAT well…
GeneJockey
@Matt McIrvin:
Treat any conspiracy theory as you would any other hypothesis. Hypotheses make testable predictions, so if your conspiracy theory requires a violation of the laws of physics, or that thousands of people all tell a huge lie with catastrophic potential consequences, for nothing more than daily living expenses, and that none of them spills the beans, then you have a problem.