The text from her son Randy that Heather Bacchus received at 1:26 AM on July 17, 2021, seemed like good news.
“I’m quitting weed for good and want to surround myself with healthy and happy people,” he wrote. “This has been too much for me and for you guys.”
Less than an hour later, at 2:09 AM, a second text arrived.
“I love you and am sorry for everything. I love dad and the same to him. I wish I would have been a better person.”
It was his suicide note.
That night, Randy killed himself.
His death followed a months-long struggle with psychotic episodes and paranoid delusions — something his parents, Heather and Randy Sr., say was triggered by years of heavy cannabis use.
Now research suggests they were right: a study published by the National Institutes of Health warns that cannabis use is implicated in 30% of cases of schizophrenia among men aged 18 to 30.
The study links schizophrenia to cannabis use disorder: the inability to stop using cannabis despite the negative impacts it is having on the user’s life.
