My 15 year old son Kaeden died by suicide in November 2021. He jumped 7 stories from a local parking garage. Two days prior to his death, he attended a party and ingested a crazy amount of THC from his peer’s dab pen. In the course of an hour, per his friends’ reports, he hit the dab pen 14-15 times, quickly began passing in and out, and was exhibiting behaviors that were completely unlike him; he was clearly out of his mind and in some sort of psychosis. He was talking to shelves in the closet, spitting at his friends, was highly belligerent, and he hit his friend. He was told to leave the party and one of his friends went with him. The police were called by a homeowner down the road from the party after Kaeden was passing in and out and vomiting on his lawn. The police called us at 10pm. Kaeden had been dropped off at the party at 9pm. Hospital drug screen showed THC and just a little bit of alcohol.
On Sunday, we let Kaeden rest, talked to him here and there, but figured he was likely still high and for sure still recovering. He was subdued and upset with himself, but generally appeared ok. We talked about returning to school on Monday and “facing the music”, talked about how the chatter at school would settle down soon enough, etc. On Monday morning we dropped him off at school, but instead of going into the building, he walked to a nearby bus stop and went downtown.
Now, Kaeden had depression, and in April 2021 he was using marijuana and did have suicidal ideation. However, over the summer he got sober and just the day before the party he attended, he was talking about how good he felt and how proud he was to be sober. Kaeden was always the first one to help friends with suicidal ideation and tell them to push thru hard times, his best friend’s brother had just died by suicide in March 2021, and we all talked frequently about what to do if anyone was feeling like harming themselves. So, for Kaeden to act so completely out of character and make the decision to end his life after the incident at that party, we really feel he still had to be under the influence of the THC psychosis. Why Kaeden even decided to use substances that night is on him, but the actions he took after that night, we believe were impacted by the THC.
Kaeden’s 2 best friends are still using marijuana dab pens regularly, and his other best friend experienced a several days-long cannabis induced psychosis just last week after 2 bites- 2 BITES – of a brownie made with THC. Was Kaeden’s death not enough for these kids to realize the dangers of THC???
People need to know, and understand, about the horrible impact of today’s THC. TEENAGERS need to know and understand. Thank you for your work and advocacy, Laura and Johnny’s Ambassadors