An Extensive List Of All Those Who Have Died Of A Marijuana Overdose
If you ever get into an argument with someone claiming how dangerous marijuana is, lead them to this article. Cannabis has plenty of good uses, it has a low harm rate, and is becoming more culturally accepted year by year. I won’t spoil it for you, but the list of those who have died of a cannabis overdose is shorter than 5 and not more than less than one…
Thursday is April 20, better known to many as 4/20, or “Weed Day.” People around the world are celebrating the unofficial marijuana holiday by gathering for rallies, smoke-outs, policy discussions and thousands of other weed-centric events.
It’s a day of blissful hypocrisy for millions of cannabis users in the U.S., who by and large are still expected to be somewhat covert about their fondness for the plant. The federal government maintains that marijuana is a dangerous illegal drug, with no accepted medicinal value and a high potential for abuse. Despite repeated calls for the reclassification of cannabis, it remains on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s list of Schedule I substances ― which also includes heroin, mescaline, LSD and a broad category of synthetic stimulants often referred to as “bath salts.”
The government’s message is clear: Marijuana and the psychoactive compound within it ― tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC ― poses a severe hazard to your health. To get a better sense of just how dangerous these substances are, The Huffington Post set out to compile a list of every person who has ever died solely as the result of a marijuana overdose.
Here’s what we found:
There are no recorded instances of anyone dying from a fatal dose of marijuana alone.
Nothing has changed since the last time HuffPost highlighted this fact in 2013. And because the list was once again relatively easy to compile, we had time to find this GIF of a dog with the munchies. He did not overdose on marijuana ― though dogs can, so keep that in mind. He is also a good boy.
Fatally overdosing on marijuana in its most commonly ingested forms is seemingly impossible. In 1988, a DEA judge argued in favor of rescheduling marijuana in part because of its low harm profile. In his ruling, he wrote that a user would have to ingest somewhere between 20,000 to 40,000 times the amount of THC contained in a single joint to approach lethal toxicity.
“A smoker would theoretically have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within about fifteen minutes to induce a lethal response,” wrote Judge Francis Young.
A more recent study suggests a lethal dose of marijuana may actually be even higher. To be at risk of fatal poisoning, a user would have to orally ingest more than half a gram of pure THC per kilogram of body mass, according to a 2014 analysis of the compound. At 88kg, the average American man would have to down more than an ounce and half of 100 percent THC extract. That’s almost certainly not possible, but if it were, it might involve taking this “Dragon Ball” to the face.
Steve
Steve is an affordable multifamily housing professional that is also the co-founder of Whiskey Congress. Steve has written for national publications such as The National Marijuana News and other outlets as a guest blogger on topics covering sports, politics, and cannabis. Steve loves whiskey, cigars, and uses powerlifting as an outlet to deal with the fact that no one listens to his brilliant ideas.
