Friday, March 7, 2014

Death by Marijuana, Can it Happen?

   It is said that no one has ever died from marijuana. No one.
   I wonder how that is possible, though, if there is a fivefold increase in the chances of a heart attack, as is reported in this study (see link below) from Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. I do not know if this study is accurate. I do wonder whether a proper conclusion was drawn.
   But, I also have to believe that Dr. Murray Mittleman and his colleagues, being scholars, probably had reason for coming to the conclusion that smoking pot increases the chances of a heart attack fivefold.
   So, are these deaths being written off as being caused by heart attacks, as if marijuana had nothing to do with them?
   Yes, some would say the heart attack is the killer, not the marijuana. But, that doesn't wash, for me. If two men were shot while walking down a street, one of them being old and the other young, and they were both shot in the same spot in the gut, and the old man died because he was more prone to death, and the young man lived, would we say the old-man's death wasn't caused by him being shot, it was caused by him being old? We could point to the fact that the young man lived, and say the old man was surely already predisposed to death, so the gunshot wasn't the cause of his demise.
   It makes as much sense to let the shooter of the old man off of murder charges as it does to let marijuana off scot-free for those with heart conditions who die after taking marijuana. This is not to say I am convinced the Harvard study is accurate. But, if it is, then we must believe there is such a thing as death by marijuana.
(Parts of this blog rewritten 3/9/14)
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=117399&page=1

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