Death From Marijuana
Relax, it hasn't happened yet.
Oh sure, there have been deaths where marijuana was blamed -- but in all of medical history, nobody has died from a marijuana overdose. Read that once more: in all of medical history, nobody has died from a marijuana overdose. It can't happen. Your body has a nice little self-limiting trick it uses: when you smoke too much, you pass out. Nothing dangerous, no risk of any problems -- you just won't wake up until your body's had a chance to clear some of that good old THC out of your system. (In the mean time, you'll likely have some rather intense dreams.)
Obviously there can be complications from smoking too much. While the most common one is to simply pass out / fall into a deep sleep, some people feel nauseous, and occasionally vomiting will occur. These side effects suck, but they're fairly rare, and even when they do occur, pretty harmless. Before you start worrying that stuff like that will happen to you: relax -- the most common side effect of smoking "too much" (a loaded term by the way) is to simply feel stoned out of your mind, and more than a little sleepy.
If you liked that post, then try these...
Weed Mixers (or What do I mix with my pot?) on February 28th, 2008
The Strength of Marijuana on April 26th, 2007
The Strength of Dutch Weed on December 5th, 2007
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June 3rd, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Hey, I'm wit ye there. If it was possible to die from OD on weed, I wouldn't be here right now:D You just pass out and think your in a dream. Really, you think your in a dream when you hvae too much.
July 9th, 2008 at 6:20 am
What about the increase in blood pressure and heart rate? Couldn't that cause someone to have a heart attack?
July 9th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Most of the concerns about marijuana-induced heart attacks stem from a single study released in 2000. This study, widely reported at the time (and re-discovered by blogs from time to time) seemed to draw a pretty clear conclusion that marijuana increased the risk of heart attack -- until one looked at the study data itself.
Out of the 3,882 heart attack survivors studied, only 124 used marijuana. Of those, only nine people reported that they had smoked marijuana within an hour of the onset of the heart attack's symptoms.
That's a pretty shaky connection at best. I don't doubt that someone with a weak cardiovascular system is engaging in risky behavior by using marijuana -- but marijuana is not unique in this regard: there's a reason that these people are warned to avoid roller coasters, drinks with large amounts of caffeine, etc.
There have been a number of studies done on the mortality rate of marijuana users, some as far back as 1967. If there were a significant risk of heart attack, it would have shown up in such studies. As it has not, it is not unreasonable to assume that the risk of heart attack in healthy adults is negligible.