Last week a report came out about the death of an 11-month old after exposure to cannabis. The child’s death prompted headlines about “the first marijuana overdose death” ever and has had tongues wagging. However, that’s not exactly what the doctors meant. (Isn’t the news cycle interesting? This report is from the August edition of the journal Clinical Practice and Cases in Emergency Medicine- not only is this not new news, this journal isn’t a scientific study or research report.)
“We are absolutely not saying that marijuana killed that child,” said Thomas Nappe, an author of the report who is now the director of medical toxicology at St. Luke’s University Health Network in Bethlehem, Pa.1 And drug policy and health experts also warned about reading too much into this report.
“Nappe, who co-authored the report with Christopher Hoyte, explained that the doctors simply observed this unusual sequence of events, documented it and alerted the medical community that it is worth studying a possible relationship between cannabis and the child’s cause of death, myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle.
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Nappe emphasized that the word ‘associated’ should not be interpreted as indicating a cause and effect.” 2
A spokesman for Denver Health said, “We’re not saying definitively that marijuana caused the myocarditis. All we are saying is we didn’t find any other reasons. So we need to study this further.”3
According to the report, the poor child lived in an “unstable motel-living situation” with parents who had drugs, including cannabis.
Therefore, still, to date, no one has died of an overdose of marijuana. In fact, even the DEA states the same thing.
The takeaway? If you’ve been worried about this it’s time to stop.
