Category: Marijuana Overdose

Some believe that Cannabis / Marijuana is a Dangerouos Drug. So how many people have died from overdosing on Cannabis?

Posted by Vincent Banial

Before I get into how many people died from overdosing on Cannabis / Marijuana, let us look at a common over the counter pain medication called Acetaminophen. One common well-known brand of Acetaminophen is called Tylenol.

From a US Government Agency Study they reported the following:

“RESULTS:

We estimate an annual average of 44,348 (NHAMCS, 2000-2007) or 78,414 (NEISS, 2006-2007) acetaminophen overdose-related ED visits and 33,520 (NHDS, 2000-2006) hospitalizations. For 2000-2006 we calculated an age-adjusted rate of 13.9 acetaminophen overdose-related hospitalizations per 100,000 US population, with the highest rate (15.7) occurring from 2005 to 2006. Between 1991 and 2006, there was no decrease noted in hospitalizations for intentional or unintentional overdoses. The majority of overdoses reported in NEISS (69.8%) and NHDS (74.2%) were classified as intentional (suicides or suicidal gestures), whereas in NHAMCS, intentionality was evenly distributed.”

The name of the study was “Characterization of acetaminophen overdose-related emergency department visits and hospitalizations in the United States.” it was authored by the following persons : Manthripragada AD1, Zhou EH, Budnitz DS, Lovegrove MC, Willy ME.

The above results which were published on PubMed.gov site of the US National Library of MedicineNational Institutes of Health,

 Now, please try and find one single case of death caused by overdosing on Cannabis / Marijuana. I could not find even one.

 

There is a good article posted by the Huffington Post site titled : “The Exhaustive List Of Everyone Who’s Died Of A Marijuana Overdose” by Nick Wing.
Since this blog will be about Medical Cannabis I figured that it is good to visit the safety record of Cannabis versus commonly available over the counter medication such as Acetaminophen.

Graphic of Cannabis plant

One line from the Nick Wong’s post stands out in my mind and it is ““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.“

 

One could say that the use of Medical Cannabis or Medical Marijuana is considerably safer than commonly available over the counter medication called Acetaminophen. One common well-known brand of Acetaminophen is called Tylenol.