Oh No! Marijuana May Have Actually Killed Someone

Marijuana supporters are always quick to use the fact that no one has ever died from smoking pot as ammunition to their argument for why it should be legal... Well, it turns out that that argument may not work anymore! 

Even the National Institute on Drug Abuse agreed that weed wouldn't kill you:

If you mean can they overdose and die from marijuana--the answer is no, its not very likely. But they can experience extreme anxiety (panic attacks) or psychotic reactions (where they lose touch with reality and may become paranoid). And people can and do injure themselves because of marijuana's effects on judgment, perception, and coordination.

But in an extremely rare circumstance, so rare it may be the only time ever, a woman from across the pond may have died from smoking a joint! According to a British newspaper, Metro, Gemma Moss collapsed in her bedroom after smoking half a joint to help her sleep. Doctors found nothing wrong with her vital organs but ‘moderate to heavy’ levels of the drug in her blood. The coroner agreed with a pathologist that cannabis was to blame for her death, possibly triggering a heart attack.

But a former chief drug adviser to the UK and psychopharmacologist, David Nutt said not so fast:

"Cannabis usually makes the heart work a little harder and subtly affects its rate and rhythm. Any minor stress on the body can be the straw that breaks the camel's back, the butterfly's wingbeat that triggers the storm. Ms Moss had suffered with depression, which itself increases the risk of sudden cardiac death. It is quite plausible that the additional small stress caused by that cannabis joint triggered a one-in-a-million cardiac event, just as has been more frequently recorded from sport, sex, saunas and even straining on the toilet. "

So if I read that correctly, you are as likely to die smoking a joint as you are trying to push out a tough turd... Instead of the whole whole no one ever died smoking weed spiel, use that line in your next argument!