Cannabis is blamed as cause of man's death

Telegraph Group Limited ^ | 20/01/2004) | Richard Savill

[Dubya]

A man of 36 is believed to have become the first person in Britain to die directly from cannabis poisoning.

Lee Maisey smoked six cannabis cigarettes a day for 11 years, an inquest heard. His death, which was registered as having been caused by cannabis toxicity, led to new warnings about the drug, which is due to be reclassified this month as a less dangerous one.

"This type of death is extremely rare," Prof John Henry, a toxicologist at Imperial College, London, said after the inquest at Haverfordwest, west Wales.

"I have not seen anything like this before. It corrects the argument that cannabis cannot kill anybody."

The inquest heard that Mr Maisey had complained of a headache on Aug 22 last year. Next morning he was found dead at the house he shared with a friend, Jeffrey Saunders, in Summerhill, Pembrokeshire.

Michael Howells, the Pembrokeshire coroner, said Mr Maisey was free from disease and had not drunk alcohol for at least 48 hours. Post-mortem tests showed a high level of cannabinoids in his blood.

He recorded a verdict of death by misadventure because Mr Maisey had died while taking part in an illegal activity. The death led to a warning about the changing strength of Dr Philip Guy, a lecturer in addictions at the University of Hull, said: "Cannabis is not the nice hippy drug it used to be. It has been experimented with to produce stronger varieties."

Dr Guy said that death was more likely if users ate the drug rather than smoked it. "I would not be surprised if in this case the deceased had ingested a fatal amount of cannabis."

Last autumn police issued a warning that big consignments of strong cannabis were being smuggled in from Africa. On Jan 29, cannabis will be reclassified from a class B to a class C drug.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said last night: "This highlights what we have been saying about the effects of cannabis all along. When will people wake up to the fact that cannabis can be a harmful drug?

"By reclassifying the drug David Blunkett has shown he has lost the war on drugs. In my eyes, it's nothing more than an admission of failure."

Tristan Millington-Drake, the chief executive of the Chemical Dependency Centre

[Land of the Free 04]

I don't see beer and liquor as interchangable. Dope is dope.

Who says marijuana smokers see potent and less potent marijuana as interchangable except for potency?

Plus if you are going to smoke it. It would seem reasonable that you would smoke as little as possible.

Which is exactly why "wimpy dope" will NOT be the same price as "kickass dope"---so you've answered your own question.

But it is also not necessarily the case that the price of marijuana would be directly proportional to THC content. For one thing, people who find even one puff of "kickass dope" too much will prefer less potent stuff; for another, people who bake with marijuana won't care much about the amount of plant matter they use.

[vin-one]

and I suppose you never had a drink of alcohol....
the Hypocrisy on this thread is amazing.

[vin-one]

no Xena, you turn into a peach.....LOL.....

been away for awhile, how have you been.......

[Land of the Free 04]

Also note that it takes more effort to grow "kickass dope"---its pollination has to be carefully controlled.

[Protagoras]

The difference between you and the other poster is he doesn't admit it. He didn't like it too well when he got his own childish BS back in his face.

[dread78645]

Verminous Bogarticus

Cool with me, as long as they bring their own tiny little bags of Doritos ...

[Protagoras]

There is "kick ass" beer, and regular beer. I don't drink the first kind very often.

[missyme]

My mother has always had an amazing "GREEN THUMB" and about 20 years ago she grew some Pot Plants they bloomed un-believably! My brother found out and drove 200 miles to get to my mom's when he arrived she had already got rid of them, boy she did not know what she started....

[Melinator]

You seem awfully obsessed with (clinging to your version of) "reality". So much so that you insist upon everyone else being forced to share your "reality".

Are you afraid of losing your grip on this carefully crafted little "reality" you've somehow created for yourself?

Also, if I get drunk or stoned, Am I somehow creating an alternate "reality"? Does this frighten you so much that you are willing to hire the Gov't to kill people to make them quit changing their "reality"?

[missyme]

Nothing worse than a hypocrite....

[TKDietz]

Axel:

It is difficult to know how potent the marijuana he smoked was. Here in the U.S. most of the marijuana on the streets comes from Mexico. Depending on which study you read it averages somewhere around 4 or 5% THC give or take a percent or two. The higher grade stuff is usually grown domestically, although an increasing amount comes from Canada. Sinsemilla (without seeds) averages around 12 or 13% depending on whose numbers you are looking at. In Britain it seems that they call all sinsemilla "skunk" and that their potency numbers are around the same as ours for the seedless stuff. Some samples have tested out around 30% THC, but marijuana that strong appears to be rare given that the average "skunk" tests out at around half that number.

It would probably be safe to say that the marijuana this guy was smoking was probably less than 15% THC. Now, there are a couple of caveats. First off people in England of often smoke hash mixed with tobacco and most, I believe, actually even mix their marijuana with tobacco. That's the way they all seemed to do it back when I lived in Europe in the mid eighties and I've heard that most still do it that way but things are slowly changing. Now, not only do people tend to mix their hash and loose marijuana with tobacco, but there is no uniform joint size. Some people roll them big such that they have a gram or more marijuana in them, others roll them much smaller than that.

So anyway, it's difficult to say how much THC this guy was ingesting in his six joints a day. If they were big fat joints with a gram each of pure marijuana in them that was strong 15% THC stuff, he'd be ingesting somewhere near .9 grams of pure THC per day (this does not account for the fact that a fair amount of THC would be contained in the smoke in the air that is never inhaled).

You asked if regular smokers smoke less than what this guy was smoking and I would say yes. First off, most pot smokers don't smoke pot everyday. According to SAMHSA, only around 10 or 11% of pot smokers report smoking on 300 or more days out of the year. More than half say they smoke on between 1 and 49 days out of the year. Not only do most not smoke the stuff everyday, but most don't smoke six joints a day either. Now, some people smoke much more than that. A few people apparently smoke ten or twenty joints a day or ten or fifteen grams, however you want to look at it. I've certainly known people who easily go through an ounce (28 grams) a week, although often the reason for this is that they tended to share with a lot of people. When I was really into smoking pot back in college and my roommate and I were smoking almost everyday, generally several times a day, we usually didn't smoke more than a quarter of an ounce (7 grams) between us every week. We usually smoked one "hit" at a time out of a small "one hitter" pipe but when I was rolling joints I usually got around a eleven or twelve joints out of a quarter ounce that were about as big around as a pencil in the middle and tapered at the ends. We weren't rich kids so we we're really sparing with it. We were also proficient at mooching off our friends and cleaning resin out of pipes whenever we ran out. We ran the dorm's free "bong cleaning service" and kept our nasty resin in a Parkey tub for the times when we were broke and bored.

So, the answer is that yes six joints a day is more than most people smoke but there are certainly people out there that smoke more than that, even twice that or more.

[vin-one]

"bong cleaning service" and kept our nasty resin in a Parkey tub

Butter, no parkay
butter
No resin......cracks me up.....

[babaloo999]

Marijuana does, indeed, kill. Just a few examples here:

http://www.chbc.com/news/articles_files/8000/news_14_8000.shtml

http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/2096.html


http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/26/1061663793238.html?from=storyrhs

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/Nov/11/ln/ln10a.html

[Doomonyou]

That gives new meaning to the phrase,

"That's some Killer bud, Dude."

[missyme]

THIS IS WHAT YOUR ARTICLE SAYS??????

Instead, Makike is serving a three-year suspended jail term, after killing his 18-year-old son while influenced by anger and alcohol.?????

Yesterday, Makike, 38, walked silently from the Supreme Court after Justice David Harper sentenced him for manslaughter.

Justice Harper said Makike's confrontation with his son on June 9 last year seemingly stemmed from his anger that Beniamina would not listen to his concerns about using marijuana.

"It is significant and sadly ironic that it was your own and Beniamina's consumption of another drug, alcohol, which . . . proved to be fatal," he said.??????

[Dead Corpse]

Ah.... no. Back up and punt again. Fire, accident, and homicide appear to be your killers there. It could have easily been prescription painkillers or sesame oil in you instances.

Please try again...

[augggh]

Three of your links are deaths caused by the laws, not by the drug.
The first link is a darwin award. Ironically, caused by alcohol fumes igniting.

[Land of the Free 04]

You forgot to close your sarcasm tag ... right?

[babaloo999]

You forgot to close your sarcasm tag ... right?

I wasn't aware that it was needed. Apparantly some things do need to be spelled out. In detail. More than once. Repeatedly. Rinse and repeat.

[babaloo999]

But, I thank you for noting the obvious.