A coroner's investigation into the death of a Louisiana woman found she died from a THC overdose in what appears to be the first recorded death from marijuana use in the United States. According to the New Orleans Advocate, Coroner Christy Montegut has outlined how he believes a 39-year-old woman, discovered dead in her apartment, died from vaping THC oil. THC, the acronym for tetrahydrocannabinol, is the psychoactive compound in cannabis. Montegut, who has served in his post since 1988, believes the case is the first recorded of its kind. While deaths involving marijuana have been recorded in the past, the coroner said he was unaware of any instances where THC was the sole drug that had contributed to a death. "It looked like it was all THC because her autopsy showed no physical disease or afflictions that were the cause of death. There was nothing else identified in the toxicology—no other drugs, no alcohol," Montegut said. "There was nothing else." The National Center for Biotechnology Information, a branch of the National Institute of Health, said prior to news of the recent death in Louisiana, there had been "no known cases of fatal overdose from cannabis use in the epidemiologic literature." However, medical and science experts have been quick to cast doubt on the claims out of Louisiana. Keith Humphreys, a former senior policy adviser at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, has said if it were possible for humans to consume THC at levels that made overdosing possible, there would be far more recorded deaths each year. "We know from really good survey data that Americans use cannabis products billions of times a year, collectively. Not millions of times, but billions of times a year," the policy adviser said. "So, that means that if the risk of death was one in a million, we would have a couple thousand cannabis overdose deaths a year." Bernard Le Foll, a professor at the University of Toronto who studies addiction has said the levels of THC in the woman's system at the time of her death were insufficient to amount to a fatal dose. In the past it has been estimated an individual would have to smoke 2,000 joints to ingest a lethal amount of THC. The professor described the levels of THC in the woman's system as "not very high." Montegut has said the woman was likely smoking the cannabis oil in highly concentrated form. "I'm thinking this lady must have vaped this THC oil and got a high level in her system and [it] made her stop breathing, like a respiratory failure," he said. THC Overdose: Has First Death From Marijuana Exposure Been Recorded?
the word likely is added to the last paragraph, not be me! ....lol @Storm Crow has any papers on this?
What a quack. "I'm thinking this lady must have vaped this THC oil and got a high level in her system and [it] made her stop breathing, like a respiratory failure," he said." If someone stops breathing it's called a respiratory arrest, not respiratory failure. Respiratory failure can lead to a respiratory arrest but the terms are not interchangeable.
Of course we know of stuff getting tampered with but I’m not believing it was THC. Would it be possible to get a high enough concentration to be lethal like tobacco can be? I’ll give it a shot. This really sounds like some of the “dangers” that we were lectured on in the 80s.
As far as the dangers go, I thought about frying my brain like it was an egg but I kept thinking about doing it for so long I couldn't get it out of my head.
Isn't breathing controlled by the Brain Stem? There aren't many Cannabinoid receptors in the Brain Stem from what I've heard. This whole story is pretty fucking fishy, if you ask me.
I've ODed on edibles a couple of times and switched to manual breathing because I couldn't tell if I was breathing autonomously. I know it was silly but I was stoned to the bone. I may have been drinking too, it's been so long, I don't remember. But yeah, there are CB1 receptors in the brainstem where breathing is controlled but large doses of THC tend to speed up breathing, not slow it down. Breathing control is incredibly complex but the way it reacts to THC is totally different than how it reacts to opiates. I've heard THC is a bronchodilator but IME it's not very effective. Smoking bud or vaping oil doesn't open up my airways. it constricts them but I don't think it's from the THC, it's more likely irritation from the smoke or the coating of oil that causes my SOB. If I hit the rig, I have SOB for a couple of days which is the main reason I stick to oil caps these days.
exactly but the Cis bend in the THC molecule is what allows it to Diffuse through the lungs and be an Expectorant as well in the Entirety of teh airway and THC will be active and Diffuse not clogging or stopping any oxygen from entering the airways too
I don't envy resp tech's. I can handle blood, pee, vomit, shit, but it's the snot that grosses me out.