From The Grio — The horrifying thought of a man eating another man’s face leads one to ask: how could someone in his or her right mind do that? Clearly, Rudy Eugene was not in his.

One theory is that he suffered from “cocaine psychosis,” meaning that cocaine caused him to become psychotic and attack the victim, Ronald Poppo. Another theory implicates LSD-like chemicals in bath salts as the cause.

However, simply finding cocaine — or any other drug — in a psychotic person’s system does not mean it led to his or her violent behavior. There are many people who self-medicate their psychological illnesses with alcohol, pain medications or other illicit substances instead of seeking professional help. It is possible that Eugene already had an underlying mental illness before ever using drugs.

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