From The Times, 20 January 2004
A WARNING about the toxic effects of cannabis was issued last night after a 36-year-old man became the first to die as a direct result of smoking the drug. Lee Maisey, 36, who smoked half a dozen "joints" a day, was found dead on the living room floor of his home in Summerhill, Pembrokeshire, after complaining of a headache. Michael Howells, the Pembrokeshire Coroner, recorded the cause of death as cannabis poisoning...
From The Metro 26 August 2009:
Heroin and morphine deaths rose from 829 to 897 from 2007 to last year*, while the figure for cannabis went up from 12 to 19.
* That's totally misleading as well. Last time I checked the figures, there were roughly equal numbers of deaths involving (illegal) heroin (about 300,000 users) and (legal) methadone (about 30,000 users). Figures from memory, so don't quote me on that.
UPDATE: I looked at the numbers a year ago; heroin-related deaths outnumber methadone-related deaths three-to-one, but the ratio of users is indeed ten-to-one.
Thursday, 27 August 2009
Cannabis related deaths up by nearly two thousand per cent in five years: shock
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5 comments:
I´ve never known anyone dying of cannabis poisoning. What total rubbish unless he ate half a pound of it!
What total rubbish unless he ate half a pound of it!
I remember reading about the experiment where they force fed cannabis to rats and eventually they died. To recreate the same effect in humans would involve eating roughly 1/2 kilo of the stuff which is of course unpossible due to the passing out and general giggling way before a critical mass has been consumed .. .. ..
TBH I blame the government's attempts to discourage cannabis use for the rise in cannabis use.
Agreed Sue. I even believe that if you ate half a pound, you would puke rather than O/D.
To quote Terence McKenna:
*Cannabis does change people, most notably it makes them hostile to the values of industrial capitalism.*
So expect no change in tack from the powers that be.
Even if this story were true, the story itself says "the first to die as a direct result of smoking the drug" as you highlighted Mark. Compare that with the number of people who die directly from alcohol consumption each year (thousands).
So why is alcohol legal and consumed right across society with no penalty and yet cannabis is illegal and being involved with it can lead to 5 years in prison?
Doesn't seem like a very consistent and evidence based approach to me.
I think i can clarify the situation here.
unless Ms Maisey was smoking pure weed spliffs (which you don't tend to find outside Dutch cafes), she very likely died of tobacco poisoning.
As you allude to in the title though Mark, we must all remember up to a billion people will die this year alone from eating teabags. Just stop and think about the children!
Won't someone call the Daily Mail and tell them etc.
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