The Butcher's Bill:Legal Marijuana OD Stats

[Delta4Embassy]

"How many?"

"Uh, none."

"You counted them?"

"Twice."

- "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

Here's An Updated Tally Of All The People Who Have Ever Died From A Marijuana Overdose

"With recreational pot now for sale in Colorado and widespread confusion over a recent satirical story that jokingly claimed 37 people had already died of a marijuana overdose, we figured it might be about time to update our weed death count.

Yeah, not a single person has ever died from a weed overdose. We don't have numbers on pandas, but we're guessing it's about the same. According to one frequently cited study, a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times the amount of THC in a joint in order to be at risk of dying."

For comparison, according to the CDC:

"There are approximately 88,000 deaths attributable to excessive alcohol use each year in the United States."
CDC - Fact Sheets-Alcohol Use And Health - Alcohol

 

[Mr. H.]

88k/year vs Zed over the centuries. Do da math. It's a no-brainer, man. For sure, yah know.

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Nah, it just makes ya goofy - like Uncle Ferd...

Does Marijuana Induce Psychosis?
April 09, 2014 — It's something Colorado's legalized marijuana industry did not want to see: a college student tried a cannabis edible product and inexplicably jumped to his death.

"It's the kind of tragedy that a lot of us predicted before legalization and, unfortunately, we're going to have a lot more of it," said Dan Caplis, a Denver attorney and AM talk radio personality. Caplis is leading an on-air campaign to repeal Amendment 64, which made recreational marijuana legal as of January 1. He argues voters have completely overlooked the dangers of the drug, but are now beginning to wisen up as inevitable realities begin to set in.

"There is a groundswell building to repeal it," he said. "It's going to continue to lose support because there are going to be more harms coming from it, large and small." Less than two and a half months after marijuana's legalization, there was already a tragic case in point: a fatality so bizarre one might think it came from the histrionic 1936 propaganda film "Reefer Madness."

On March 11, 19-year-old college student Levy Thamba plunged to his death from the balcony of a Holiday Inn in Denver. It is the first time officials have publicly attributed a death to marijuana since the drug was legalized for recreational use on January 1. Thamba had 7.2 nanograms of THC (the active ingredient in marijuana) per milliliter in his blood. That's more than the 5 nanograms per milliliter applied to impaired driving cases under state law.

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See also:

Eric Holder Won't Try to Halt Marijuana Legalization
April 09, 2014 — Don't look to Attorney General Eric Holder to make any more efforts towards marijuana legalization. Tuesday at the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Enforcement by the Justice Department, Rep. Cohen (D-TN) pointedly asked Holder to request a study from the Secretary of Science on changing marijuana from a Schedule I controlled substance and was turned down.

"Why will you not act?" questioned Cohen, "Congress won't act, because Congress is generally like tortoises. It will not put its head out there." "I think we have acted in a responsible way," said Holder. He noted his Smart Crime initiatives, cited his resource restraints and finally said his department had acted appropriately.

Cohen pushed harder saying, "All you have to do is ask. Why not ask?" Cohen went on to say that with 20 states and Washington, D.C. legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes, there was obviously a medical benefit. A Schedule I controlled substance has no medical benefit. "What's obvious to one is perhaps not obvious to another," Holder responded. He finally ended the exchange saying, "I'm satisfied with what we have done."

Several members of Congress clearly felt Holder should not have allowed Colorado and Washington to pass laws that conflicted with Federal law. He continually said he had limited resources and that there were many technical violations of Federal law that his department just couldn't go after.

Other lawmakers asked why could these states could decide not to follow Federal law on controlled substances, but other states weren't allowed to decide not to follow Obamacare. Some tried to correlate immigration laws to marijuana laws, but Holder wasn't backing down. He just kept repeating that he had limited resources.

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[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - it's a gateway drug - it'll lead to gettin' hooked on harder drugs...

Will Marijuana Economy Cause Addiction Boost?
April 24, 2014 — Pot proponents like to say that drug rehabilitation centers are opposed to legalization, because they profit from drug prohibition. Of course, that is a little like saying the hot dog concession at the baseball game loses money when there is a sellout crowd.

"We project we will see more business with legalization, so I do not concur with that at all," said Kate Osmundson, spokesperson for Arapahoe House, an addiction and rehabilitation center - the largest in Colorado.

She bases this projection on alcohol usage. "We know from alcohol that increased access leads to increased use," she said. "Alcohol is the U.S. and Colorado's number one drug problem. What we are seeing now - with marijuana admissions in our detox units - is our staff doing more education. Our staff is currently seeing an increase in marijuana related DUI's."

She said that marijuana is not like other drugs in that the addiction can be gradual. It can take place over a long period of time. Meth addiction, on the other hand, happens quickly. Osmundson noted that Arapahoe has seen a 53% increase in marijuana as a secondary drug from 2008 to 2013. This was during the years following medical marijuana legalization.

She also cited a chilling fact: "Marijuana is the number one drug of choice for our teen clients." There's something of a contradiction of marijuana legalization advocates complaining about rehab centers' losing money from legalization, according to Kevin Sabet, an assistant professor of Psychiatry at the University of Florida and the director of the Drug Policy Institute there.

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[PredFan]

Meh, Darwin's Law. Thinning the herd is a good thing.

 

[Katzndogz]

As marijuana becomes an industry the goal becomes increasing use. That was the entire argument behind tobacco. The goal was to increase use. There were commercials on doctors telling people to smoke to treat a variety of medical issues. The difference is, no one ever got stoned on tobacco.