 | UK Coroner Says Cannabis Poisoning Killed Man |
 It has been reported that a British man may have become the world's first person to die directly from cannabis poisoning. A coroner said Lee Maisey, 36, smoked around 6 joints a day for an 11-year period and, unable to find any other cause of death, decided upon death by "probable cannabis toxicity".
NORML says: be sceptical of the prohibitionist media. It is probably no coincidence that this finding was issued the week before the UK changed their law to make cannabis possession "non-arrestable".
Furthermore, coroners do not always have medical training. They can actually name any cause of death they like, and it does not neccessarily have to be the actual cause. Their findings are unchallengeable. There are no deaths from cannabis poisoning or toxicity recorded in the scientific literature.
The International Association for Cannabis as Medicine (IACM) said that the level of cannabinoids in the deceased's blood was equivalent to 1 or 2 joints, and that the death was not caused by cannabis.
21/01/04 Prohibitionist "Progressives" say cannabis must not be decriminalized unless safe
 26/01/04 Junk Science & Bigotry Over Cannabis
UK/Switzerland: Death was not caused by cannabis
On 20 January 2004 the newspaper Daily Telegraph reported that cannabis was blamed as cause of death of a 36 year old British man. However, a review of the toxicological data and autopsy report by a Swiss expert revealed that there is no reason to assume that the sudden death of Lee Maisey in August 2003 was due to cannabis.
Mr Maisey smoked six cannabis cigarettes a day for 11 years, which was reported in some newspapers to be "excessive". He had complained of a headache on 22 August last year and was
found dead at his home next morning. Michael Howells, the local coroner, who led the investigation of the death cause, said Mr
Maisey was free from disease and had not drunk alcohol for at least 48 hours. "High levels of cannabinoids" had been found in his blood. The report led to new warnings about the dangers of the drug. Dr. John Henry, a professor of toxicology at Imperial College, London, said: "I have not seen anything like this before. It corrects the argument that cannabis cannot kill anybody."
The Federal Health Ministry of Switzerland asked Dr. Rudolf Brenneisen, a professor at the department for clinical research at the University of Bern, to review the data of this case. Dr.
Brenneisen said that the data of the toxicological analysis and collected by autopsy were "scanty and not conclusive" and that the conclusion death by cannabis intoxication was "not legitimate".
According to the toxicological analysis of a British laboratory (Forensic Alliance) Mr Maisey's blood contained 130 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml) of the THC metabolite THC-COOH. THC could not be detected due to analytical problems. Dr. Franjo
Grotenhermen of the nova-Institute in Cologne said: "A concentration of 130 ng/ml THC-COOH in blood is a moderate concentration, which may be observed some hours after the use of one or two joints. Heavy regular use of cannabis easily results
in THC-COOH concentrations of above 500 ng/ml. Many people use much more cannabis than Mr Maisey did, without any negative consequences."
(Sources: Daily Telegraph of 20 January 2004, Neue Zuericher Zeitung of 28 January 2004, personal communications)
More at the IACM-Bulletin archives:
http://www.cannabis-med.org/
International Association for Cannabis as Medicine (IACM)
Arnimstrasse 1A
D-50825 Cologne
Germany
Phone: 221-9543 9229
Fax: 221-130 05 91
Email: info@cannabis-med.org
www.cannabis-med.org
|
|
|
|
| |
| Login |
|
You can register for some special extra features. | |
| Article Rating |
Average Score: 4.27
Votes: 11
| |
|
