Worth Repeating: Approved Drugs, 10,008 Deaths; Marijuana 0

woodsmaneh!

Well-Known Member
[h=2]I was surfing and found this, this guy writes some interesting stuff, just reading this gave me more info to help my Dr come around to thinking maybe he should take another look at MMJ. He told me to take Advil now he says use bla bla but they all can be very bad for you and your liver. Worth the read if you take any meds at all.


Worth Repeating: Approved Drugs, 10,008 Deaths; Marijuana 0
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By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ in News
Wednesday, February 16, 2011 at 1:20 pm






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Photo: As It Stands
Over a 10-year period, more than 10,000 people died from taking FDA-approved drugs, while zero died from marijuana, which is considered by the federal government a highly dangerous Schedule I drug with no medical uses.
​
Welcome to Room 420, where your instructor is Mr. Ron Marczyk and your subjects are wellness, disease prevention, self actualization, and chillin'.



Worth Repeating
​By Ron Marczyk, R.N.
Health Education Teacher (Retired)




There has never been a single documented primary human fatality from overdosing on cannabis in its natural form in any amount.

When a new drug is being developed, phase two of studying it determines how safe the drug is, what would be a possible therapeutic dose vs. a fatal dose. Remember, the difference between a medicine and a poison is only the dose.


The LD 50 of a drug stands for how much of the substance being tested will kill 50 percent of a population of test subjects by overdose compared to their body mass (rats are used), and the amount of the drug that killed 50 percent is averaged according to animal body weight, and then that information is extrapolated for an average human's weight.


The amount is theoretical, because the test could never be ethically performed in real humans.


When THC is tested for its LD 50 in rats, researchers have a problem: They can't seem to kill the rats with THC, no matter how hard they try! THC is just too damn safe.


According to the Merck Index, 12th edition (the number one reference book for medical doctors), the LD 50 value for rats by inhalation of THC is 42 mg/kg of body weight. Comparing this to an average human being, one estimate of THC's LD 50 for humans indicates that about 1,500 pounds (680 kg) if cannabis would have to be smoked within 14 minutes. Warning: Don't try this at home! In the real world, the only way this could possibly happen would be something like you are trapped in a house made of cannabis, it's engulfed in flames and all the windows and doors are locked -- the mother of all bong rips!)


By contrast, with alcohol, chugging as little as 10 ounces of 100 proof on an empty stomach would likely put a 150-pound person into a coma, possibly leading to respiratory arrest.


​Even aspirin can kill you. Moderate toxicity occurs at doses up to 300 mg/kg, severe toxicity occurs between 300 to 500 mg/kg, and a potentially lethal dose is greater than 500 mg/kg, i.e., the LD 50 for a 150-pound person would be approximately 100 to 125 325-mg tabs of aspirin.


Acetaminophen causes three times as many cases of liver failure as all other drugs combined, and is the most common cause of acute liver failure in the United States -- accounting for 39 percent of all cases. While it occurs through overdosing, even recommended doses, especially combined with even small amounts of alcohol, have caused irreversible liver failure. Four grams of Tylenol -- that is, just eight extra-strength tabs, taken all at once -- kills you by killing your liver.


Have you ever heard of any person committing suicide with a marijuana overdose? No, because it is impossible. If you smoke too much you just fall asleep; that's it.


THC has to be the safest drug known to mankind. Safer than water? Maybe. Ever heard of marathon runners over-hydrating before a race, and inducing a state of hyponaturemia in their bodies (very low sodium serum blood levels), which can induce a fatal cardiac arrythmia? Numbers are hard to find; it only happens to a handful of people a year, but it's serious enough that it's on runners' radar, and they are warned not to over-drink water before a big race.


Here are the 17 commonly prescribed drugs (in four groups) that were compared to marijuana in this study.


#1. Anti-emetics: Drugs to stop vomiting, common with chemotherapy in cancer patients. Examples are Compazine (15 deaths), Reglan (37), Marinol (4), Zofran (79), Anzemet (22), Kytril (36), and Tigan (3). In the 10 year look back, these seven FDA-approved drugs killed a total of 197 people with normal use.

#2. Anti-spasmodics: Drugs to treat muscle spasms, widely used for the treatment of spastic movement disorders, especially in instances of spinal cord injury, spastic diplegia, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), peripheral neuropathy and trigeminal. All are very serious medical conditions. Examples of drugs to treat these conditions are Baclofen (72 deaths) and Zanaflex (46 deaths). These two FDA-approved drugs killed a total of 118 people with normal use over 10 years. If there is one group that would benefit greatly from the peaceful effects of the herb, it's these humans who are in such need of joy.

#3. Anti-psychotics: Drugs used to treat psychosis. Haldol (450 deaths), Lithium (175), and Neurotin (968). These three FDA-approved drugs killed a total of 1,595 people with normal use over 10 years.

#4. Others: Drugs for depression, attention deficit disorder, pain, and erectile dysfunction. Ritalin (121), Wellbutrin (1,132), Adderall (54), Viagra (2,254), and Vioxx (4,540). These five FDA-approved drugs killed a total of 8,101 people with normal use over 10 years.

In total, 10,008 deaths due to company-tested drugs, with data reviewed by the FDA and approved for safe use in humans by M.D. prescription only -- vs. unregulated market cannabis, with ZERO deaths, with no M.D. overview, and about 15 percent of the U.S. population who make up the cannabis culture -- with NO recorded "marijuana deaths" in the death certificates or the news? No marijuana deaths, no matter how much you smoke at one time.

It is important to note that cannabis has been prescribed and used for centuries to treat some of these conditions, such as vomiting, muscle spasms, depression, pain control, anti-inflammatory and is somewhat of an aphrodisiac.

It doesn't always work -- but it DOESN'T KILL PEOPLE, EITHER!

Many times just being able to feel happy with no body pain and deep sleep is all a person needs to heal. Pain and suffering decrease immune system function. A big smile on your face turns the immune system on. When you are smiling, you are healing.

This huge psychological impact of cannabis is not recognized for its true worth. The "high" IS the cure!

The deaths recorded in relationship to these 17 FDA-approved drugs are all due to "adverse events." This means anything that caused people to die due to normal therapeutic doses, with the possibility of unforeseen major side effects, or accidental or purposeful overdose (both rare).

Mostly in these cases, people were just taking the normal dose as per doctor's orders and died directly due to the drug only.

Any time you take a prescribed drug, look it up and check its safety record. Remember all the drug commercials you see a hundred times a day? Part one, why you need this drug; part two, all the insane common major side effects -- like death! Hell, I almost died taking Lipitor!

Warning: Never discontinue taking a prescribed medicine on your own. Always talk to your doctor first before changing any drug treatment plan. Always talk with your M.D.; they are on your side.

So remind me again. Why is marijuana illegal?

Why is marijuana a "Schedule I" drug?

Why all the misinformation surrounding marijuana?

Why would drugs with such poor safety records be prescribed?

There is such an irrational resistance to this time-proven, gentle medicine.

(The data above was collected and analyzed by ProCon.org,http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000145)

Editor's note: Ron Marczyk is a retired high school health education teacher who taught Wellness and Disease Prevention, Drug and Sex Ed, and AIDS education to teens aged 13-17. He also taught a high school International Baccalaureate psychology course. He taught in a New York City public school as a Drug Prevention Specialist. He is a Registered Nurse with six years of ER/Critical Care experience in NYC hospitals, earned an M.S. in cardiac rehabilitation and exercise physiology, and worked as a New York City police officer for two years. Currently he is focused on how evolutionary psychology explains human behavior.



 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
deaths are deaths are they not?
Yes, and the cause of death is of interest imo. In the bho case, fire was instrumental. Cannabis was not. The only reason I am belaboring this is my impression that to mention bho so disparagingly is divisive. Why grant the opposition a lever? cn
 

Tenner

Well-Known Member
Some amazing facts so sit there and look at, while I smoke this doob :)

Put into scale perfectly.

Maybe marijuana is just too fucking good to approve of??

Sober life vs Stoned life.... Flawless victory :D
 

Jogro

Well-Known Member
deaths are deaths are they not?
Deaths secondary to illegal drug synthesis, I think, *are* legitimately distinct from deaths attributable to drug pharmacology.
More specifically, its the burning butane that kills you, not the marijuana!

If you're going to count "any" death even remotely linked to marijuana that way, then you have to count as attributable to marijuana deaths caused by:

a. Impairment secondary to intoxication. Yes, I know driving while stoned isn't as bad as driving while drunk, but you can't tell me that out of a country with 300,000,000 people containing at least several percent who use cannabis regularly, that each year there are ZERO deaths where marijuana intoxication is a contributing factor. This would include car wrecks, drownings, pedestrians hit by cars, fatal falls, etc. Since there isn't any reliable test for acute intoxication, its probably true that many if not most of these deaths go unrecognized.

b. Exacerbation of pre-existing respiratory or cardiac conditions. Again, there has to be SOME number of people each year who end up with fatal bronchitis or pneumonia from chronic cannabis smoking. Its probably a fairly small number, but some heart attacks are probably attributable to cannabis use too. I've seen at least one medical case report of someone dying from pulmonary aspergillus fungal infection from smoking moldy weed.

c. Deaths related to TRAFFICKING of marijuana. Of course these would go away if the drug were legal, but again, you figure there have to be some shootings or other killings related to local or international cannabis trafficking each year. If being burned by butane counts as a "marijuana related" death, then certainly being shot by a gangbanger should count!
 

Matt Rize

Hashmaster
Yes, and the cause of death is of interest imo. In the bho case, fire was instrumental. Cannabis was not. The only reason I am belaboring this is my impression that to mention bho so disparagingly is divisive. Why grant the opposition a lever? cn
getting high on cannabinoids takes many forms.

we are lucky that cannabis is so forgiving, many crude plant extracts are deadly.
still. BHO is strictly a marijuana thing. I count it as another way to get high. Just like tinctures and edibles. Its all "stoners" and cannabinoids.
 

Jogro

Well-Known Member

I hear this point again and again, but bluntly, deaths/year is only ONE measure associated with drug risk/efficacy, and in fact, its probably not the most important one.

What matters isn't how many people per year get killed by a given drug. What matters is its risk/benefit ratio.

If you want to judge the efficacy of any particular drug, you can't just look at how many people are killed, you have to also look at how many lives are SAVED, as well as whether or not there are existing safer alternatives.

For example, even though people actually do die every year from penicillin or sulfa drug allergies, nobody thinks we ought to ban penicillin or sulfa antibiotics. These are highly useful drugs, and if you look at in terms of lives saved/lives cost this ratio is going to be sky high. The same can be said of all sorts of other drugs that are addictive, carcinogenic, carry end-organ toxicity, and have any number of serious and potentially life-threatening side effects. Again, for example, cancer chemotherapy drugs are HIGHLY toxic, with a laundry list of serious side effects that are potentially lethal. But when dealing with otherwise likely to be fatal cancers, we accept the adverse side-effect profile.

Just because any given drug costs some lives, doesn't mean it is "unsafe" or that this should be reason to ban it. Conversely, just because a given substance is particularly non-toxic doesn't by itself mean that its suitable for medical use.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for medical marijuana. Personally, I'm of the opinion that if physicians, who are highly trained top-level medical professionals, are of sound enough training and judgment to legally prescribe opiates, amphetamines, cocaine, and all sorts of other potentially lethal and addictive drugs, then they are perfectly capable of using cannabis appropriately as medicine, too. Cannabis literally has a several thousand year-long track record of human medical use, literally as long if not longer than EVERY other medicine in the modern pharmacopia, WAS perfectly legal to use as such within the United States for most of the history of this country, and is STILL being used that way today.

But again, just because cannabis *might* be used to treat certain conditions, does NOT mean that other drugs might not work better. Just because cannabis is by itself relatively non-toxic, does NOT mean that the drug is without its own laundry list of side effects (which include confusion, short term memory impairment, lethargy, dry mouth, tachycardia, respiratory tract irritation, etc).
 

Jogro

Well-Known Member
getting high on cannabinoids takes many forms.

we are lucky that cannabis is so forgiving, many crude plant extracts are deadly.
still. BHO is strictly a marijuana thing. I count it as another way to get high. Just like tinctures and edibles. Its all "stoners" and cannabinoids.
To be clear, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with concentrated marijuana extracts. Its the same drug, just in more concentrated form. Sort of like the difference between beer and whisky.

It just comes down to what ELSE is in them, and how are they prepared.

Just because a bunch of idiots blow themselves (and/or others) up with flammable solvents doesn't by itself make "honey oil" good or bad. Ultimately that product has to be judged on its own merits.

For example, lets say the honey oil were made by Roche pharmaceuticals under precise controlled lab conditions. Would it be OK, then?
 

Matt Rize

Hashmaster
To be clear, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with concentrated marijuana extracts. Its the same drug, just in more concentrated form. Sort of like the difference between beer and whisky.

It just comes down to what ELSE is in them, and how are they prepared.

Just because a bunch of idiots blow themselves (and/or others) up with flammable solvents doesn't by itself make "honey oil" good or bad. Ultimately that product has to be judged on its own merits.

For example, lets say the honey oil were made by Roche pharmaceuticals under precise controlled lab conditions. Would it be OK, then?
GW pharma's solvent extract is beyond crude, it has to be to have full medicinal properties.
It is a good thing cannabis is so forgiving in crude extract form, actually pretty rare for psychoactive plants.
Im not saying BHO is good or bad here. Not sure where that came from.
I am saying that I count BHO deaths at marijuana related deaths. The same way that I would count you blowing up your meth lab as a meth related death. Or blowing up your still as an alcohol related death.


flash fire is the actual cause of death, but that is hardly the whole story.
 

really comfy slippers

Active Member
Vodka can be lethal... Shoving a vodka bottle up your ass and getting drunk that way is 50x more lethal... Is it the Vodka or the rectal suppository consumption?
 
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