Posted on 04/20/2014 6:04:41 PM PDT by mgist
DENVER – A college student eats more than the recommended dose of a marijuana-laced cookie and jumps to his death from a hotel balcony. A husband with no history of violence is accused of shooting his wife in the head, possibly after eating pot-infused candy. The two recent deaths have stoked concerns about Colorado’s recreational marijuana industry and the effects of the drug, especially since cookies, candy and other pot edibles can be exponentially more potent than a joint.
“We’re seeing hallucinations, they become sick to their stomachs, they throw up, they become dizzy and very anxious,” said Al Bronstein, medical director of the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center. Studies are mixed about whether there is any link between marijuana and violence. Still, pot legalization opponents said the deaths are a sign of future dangers.
Twenty-six people have reported poisonings from marijuana edibles this year, when the center started tracking such exposures. Six were children who swallowed innocent-looking edibles, most of which were in plain sight.
Five of those kids were sent to emergency rooms, and two to hospitals for intensive care, Bronstein said. Children were nauseous and sleepy, and doctors worried about their respiratory systems shutting down. Supporters of the pot law and some experts counter that alcohol causes far more problems among users, and the issues with pot can be largely addressed through better regulations.
The deaths occurred as Colorado lawmakers are scrambling to create safety regulations for the largely unmonitored marijuana snacks. On Thursday, the Legislature advanced a package of bills that would lower the amount of THC that could be permitted in a serving of food and require more extensive warning labels.
“It really is time for regulators, and the industry, to look at how do we move forward more responsibly with edible products,” said Brian Vicente, who helped lead the state’s legalization campaign.
An autopsy report listed marijuana intoxication as a significant contributing factor in the death of 19-year-old Levy Thamba Pongi. Authorities said Pongi, who traveled from Wyoming to Denver with friends to try marijuana, ate six times more than the amount recommended by a seller. In the moments before his death, he spoke erratically and threw things around his hotel room.
RELATED: College Student Ate 6 Times Recommended Amount Of Pot Cookie Before Jumping To Death
Toxicologists later found that the cookie Pongi ate contained as much THC – marijuana’s intoxicating chemical – as six high-quality joints.
Kristine Kirk, left, and Richard Kirk, right 
Less is known about Richard Kirk, 47, who was charged in Denver with shooting his 44-year-old wife, Kristine, to death while she was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher. Police said his wife reported that her husband had consumed marijuana-laced candy, but no information has been released about potency. The public defender’s office has declined comment on the allegations against Kirk.
RELATED: Husband Charged With Murder In Wife’s Shooting Death “Sadly, we’re going to start to understand over time all of the damage and all of the problems associated with marijuana,” said Thornton police Sgt. Jim Gerhardt, speaking in his capacity as a board member of the Colorado Drug Investigators Association. “It’s going to dispel the myth that there’s no downside, that there’s no side effect, to this drug. It’s sad that people are going to have to be convinced with the blood of Coloradans.”
State lawmakers last year required edible pot to be sold in “serving sizes” of 10 milligrams of THC. Lawmakers also charged marijuana regulators with setting potency-testing guidelines to ensure consumers know how much pot they’re eating. The guidelines are slated to be unveiled next month.
For now, the industry is trying to educate consumers about the strength of pot-infused foods and warning them to wait up to an hour to feel any effects before eating more. Still, complaints from visitors and first-time users have been rampant.
“One of the problems is people become very impatient,” Bronstein said. “They eat a brownie or a chocolate chip cookie and they get no effect, so then they stack the doses, and all the sudden, they get an extreme effect that they weren’t expecting.”
Last year, the poison center run by Bronstein received 126 calls concerning adverse reactions to marijuana. So far this year – after pot sales became legal on Jan. 1 – the center has gotten 65 calls. Bronstein attributed the spike to the higher concentrations of THC in marijuana that has become available.
Although millions of Americans have used pot without becoming violent, Bronstein said such behavior is possible depending on the type of hallucinations a user experiences. Toxicologists say genetic makeup, health issues and other factors also can make a difference. “With these products, everybody is inexperienced,” Bronstein said. “It’s the first time people have been able to buy it in a store. People need to be respectful of these products.”
“People are going to smoke pot whether it’s legal or illegal”
That is the crux of the matter.
Smoking kills more people every year than pot ever has. I don’t see why cigarettes should be legal when pot isn’t.
Pot is bad for you, and in a perfect world no one would use them, but let’s be real. It’s as prevalent as alcohol during Prohibition at this point, and we all know how well that turned out.
The way I see it, if laws banning cigarettes and marijuana could stop trafficking entirely I would be all for it. But we’ve been trying for decades to stop trafficking, and it’s been just as successful as the last time we tried during Prohibition.
So legalize it, tax it to oblivion, and stick health warnings all over it. Make the best out of a bad situation, because almost anyone in America could get access to marijuana now, despite it being illegal in most states.
Yeah that'll stop illegal drug dealing. /s
Yet the white race as a whole has rejected it's use as an intoxicant, and looked down on it, for thousands of years, from the time of the Greeks.
That was hyperbole. I meant tax it heavily but lower than what the cartels can bring in from Mexico.
Because that freedom for adults to chose what to ingest is just too dangerous.
I grow my own tobacco because of prohibitionists and statist tax freaks.
/johnny
“Yet the white race as a whole has rejected it’s use”
Really??? You must live in a different country than I do.
What has race got to do with it, first of all, and second of all, there are any number of things that people “look down on” - many of them are perfectly legal. People look down on spending all your money buying crap from those late night home shopping networks for example.
You mean recent decades, when I was speaking of thousands of years?
Did I say white, I should have said “Western Civilization”, and Cannabis as an intoxicant was looked down on in the West for thousands of years, that is why it’s use as an intoxicant never became common in Western Civilization.
I actually had some pot head on here the other day arguing that pot actually makes you drives better!
I only hope when one of these pot heads hits someone, it’s someone these guys love and not someone innocent.
Good observation. They say correlation is not causation, and maybe they're right. But I believe you can find a lot of evidence with correlation. For instance Paul McCartney's (a huge dope champion) production after the sixties was mostly garbage. He wasn't the only big name, dope-smoking rock and roller who did all their best work early, and then produced crap later. Is there a correlation between heavy dope use and dulling of the creative senses? Maybe.
Poll: Coloradans happier than ever with legal pot
03/20/2014
A new poll by Raleigh-based Public Policy Polling shows that more Colorado voters support legal pot than when they passed Amendment 64 in 2012. The breakdown is now 57 percent in favor of legalization to 35 percent opposed. In 2012, voters legalized pot 55-44.
http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/20/poll-coloradans-happier-than-ever-with-legal-pot/
Glad to see you qualified your earlier statement.
I guess we could parse the words of this post as they are somewhat contradictory...but why bother over something neither of us of endorse.
Do you mean using white instead of Western Civilization?
NOTE TO SELF: When in Colorado selling 30 round AR and AK magazines out of the trunk, DO NOT eat prepared food! Bring your own.
Yes
Remember that not everyone is fully conditioned in using euphemism’s imposed by the modern left of the last 40 years, I’m glad you approve of mine as sufficient.
Referring to my libertarian side, this seems like a problem that solves itself... but, the (no doubt soon to be) number of inadvertent or deliberate underage or unknowing victims will be absolutely unacceptable.
Your sarcasm is appreciated...and amusing.
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