By now you must be wondering: What drug made
James Holmes shoot 70 people, 12 of them fatally, at a movie
theater in Aurora, Colorado, on Friday? The
Telegraph notes
in passing that Holmes is (like
three out 10 24-year-olds) “a cannabis smoker” but focuses its
suspicions on the narcotic analgesic hydrocodone:

After the massacre Holmes calmly told detectives he had taken
100mg of the prescription painkiller Vicodin, and identified
himself as “The Joker.” The same drug was found in the system of
actor Heath Ledger when he died of an accidental overdose of
prescription drugs in 2008. Ledger played The Joker in the previous
Batman film The Dark Knight. Vicodin side-effects can
include euphoria, paranoia and, in rare cases, hallucinations.

And in even rarer cases, mass murder? Since Holmes seems to have
planned his attack for weeks, there may be a chronological problem
with attributing it to the pills he swallowed right before carrying
it out. In any case, we should not be so quick to rule out
bath salts, even if Holmes has never consumed them.