There is lots of mention today about Laurie Draper and his "cannabis induced" instant psychotic episode (in the Telegraph), or is it, as the Guardian says "hypomania" in Soldier killed friend's father in drug attack that supposedly led him to kill a friend's father with whom he had been sharing a pipe of cannabis.

There is no denying that his victim is dead, and that Draper killed him. But I would be intrigued to know what the medical evidence was. Because certainly the media coverage either cannot get it right or is reporting some cod science used to get someone off the greater charge based on the prejudices of people against drugs and their symptoms.

First off, which is it - psychotic or hypomania? The latter is specifically not the former. Hypomania is actually defined as a mild form of mania without psychosis - presumably the defense team thought, correctly as it turns out, that the prefix "hypo-" would sound as if it meant "severe" - the exact opposite of what it does mean. Further, contrary to what the Guardian reports, the medical definition specifically states that hypomania is only hypomania if the symptoms, none of which involve violent outbursts of the kind that would create a killer, are not related to substance use!

Second, why would being under the influence of the alleged effects of a drug be a defense against murder? Does someone who kills after getting drunk get let off murder because he or she was drinking?

Unless it was forced on him unwillingly (a paratrooper?) even if one could prove a direct and instant causal link between getting stoned and the "frenzied outburst" why would it constitute any kind of defense except by playing on the fears and prejudices of everyone involved in that legal process?

One attempt to get off a higher charge by blaming it on the skunk when even the reported scientific terms used are medically inaccurate does not constitute "proof" of a link. It only constitutes proof that in a world of suspicion and prejudice engendered by the "war on drugs" people, even lawyers, are only too willing to accept it as yet more evidence of the utter depravity and dangers one puts ones-self into by using such substances.

Will the CPS appeal the downgraded conviction? Will they hell. It suits their agenda. As the Guardian says the "case may stir debate over downgrading to class C (of cannabis)".