Research reveals greater risks for pot smokers

[Brash]

Any of our South Australian brothers & sisters catch this little piece of hysteria from 'your ABC' the other night?

--

Brash

 

Research reveals greater risks for pot smokers

Type: Transcript

Show: Stateline (South Australian edition)

Channel: ABC

Broadcast date: 01/12/2006

Reporter: Ian Henschke

 

NEWS FOOTAGE: The joint has come nearer to social acceptance than the reefer, an older name for the same thing, ever did. It is often hard to find any moderate opinion on the subject, its opponents claim it leads on to more serious drugs and is itself a dangerous sex drug.

 

IAN HENSCHKE: Puffing pot became a permanent part of our popular culture in the 60s and so the oldest dope smokers who took it up then are now in their 60s. Many smokers say it stood the test of time and that's enough proof it is safe. But the home grown hooch handed around by the hippies is nothing like the grass of today. It is like comparing beer and Vodka, the hydro grass is up to six times stronger.

 

DR DAVID CALDICOTT (RAH EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT): We know that the majority of marijuana consumed in Australia is hydroponically produced and I think that is a geographical shift, in the same way as the shift from cocaine to crack cocaine affected the United States. A large analysis of all of the cases of young heart attacks shows that in the first hour after taking a cone of marijuana or a joint of marijuana you are 4.7 times more likely to have an acute ischaemic event.

 

IAN HENSCHKE: It was just like any other day at the RAH emergency section when a healthy fighting fit 21-year-old walked in complaining of indigestion.

 

DR DAVID CALDICOTT: Did you have anything else apart from that, a bit of marijuana, some pills?

 

IAN HENSCHKE: Dr David Caldicott has seen plenty of unusual cases in casualty but he was particularly taken aback when the indigestion turned out to be two blood clots in the young man's coronary artery.

 

DR DAVID CALDICOTT: According to the ECG, this young man was having a heart attack. I didn't actually believe it was real and I made them do another one. All of the tests that we do to see if there is a family predisposition came back negative and the only factor that we could associate with it was the recent ingestion of marijuana.

 

IAN HENSCHKE: After David Caldicott had treated this young man at the age of 21 with a heart attack, he decided to write a paper for his national journal. In doing so, he reviewed the material available around the world and what he discovered was quite frightening. In one case a 14-year-old boy had dropped dead after smoking marijuana, and in a city not much larger than Adelaide in Europe, six people had died from smoking marijuana.

 

DR DAVID CALDICOTT: It was kind of like your fingerprint or your blood group, it is just a genetic freak that you are going to be susceptible or not.

 

IAN HENSCHKE: Are we talking about a handful of people, a tiny fraction or a large group?

 

DR DAVID CALDICOTT: I think what we are looking at is probably a small amount. Around about 5 per cent of consumers would be my best ballpark guess, but once again, when you consider how many people are using marijuana in Australia, particularly South Australia, that becomes a reasonable size number. This is something new and if you haven't used marijuana before, you don't know whether or not this is going to give you your first stroke or heart attack.

 

PROF LEO MAHAR (CARDIOLOGIST): His heart was normal before this happened. He came in with those clots, we were able to save him the first time, but they set in place a process, partly because of the treatment the first time, is that his arteries have really narrowed and he has had further angioplasty and now he has had to have bypass surgery and now he has got a damaged heart.

 

IAN HENSCHKE: Dr Leo Mahar is one of the country's leading cardiologists. He cleared the 21-year-old's blockages on the day with a stent but has since had to do open heart surgery on him because of permanent damage to the heart muscle. This latest evidence is forcing a reconsideration by advocates of the medical use of marijuana and the pension age pot heads should also think twice.

 

DR DAVID CALDICOTT: Doctors may not even consider the possibility that older people are using drugs and certainly our research suggests that that is not the case. It is very clear that people in their fifties and sixties are using marijuana and frequently.

 

IAN HENSCHKE: So if someone died of a heart attack and they were say 60 and they had a history of heart disease, there wouldn't be any link to marijuana.

 

DR DAVID CALDICOTT: It is entirely possible that that link would be overlooked.

 

PROF LEO MAHAR: In people in middle age and older who continue to use marijuana, maybe they have started many years ago, and by the time you get to middle age nearly all of us in our society have got coronary artery disease, you could easily precipitate them into having an acute myocardia infarction and, as we know, half of those people die before they get to hospital.

 

IAN HENSCHKE: Dr Caldicott says since being alerted to the danger by the first heart attack case, he has seen about 10 similar cases in a year and hopes this story will educate people of the medical dangers of this so-called soft drug but he is not overly optimistic.

 

DR DAVID CALDICOTT: My fear is that, depending on how this data is used, that it will just be dismissed as more scare mongering as far as drugs is concerned and it is not, it is real.

 

IAN HENSCHKE: And by the way, Dr Caldicott added a special warning of the particular risk of mixing alcohol, cannabis and tobacco.

[Guest niall]

the hydro grass is up to six times stronger

 

Bullshit.

 

it is just a genetic freak that you are going to be susceptible or not.

probably a small amount. Around about 5 per cent of consumers would be my best ballpark guess

he has seen about 10 similar cases in a year

 

Errr...

[bongonaussie]

thanks for posts like these Brash..

 

Yeah, makes you wonder where they get there facts from..

 

6 times stronger...I'd like to see that..

[everest]

i'm sick of these wankers hey .... fukin one joint wonders imo ...

 

anyone got any spare x -six strength ganj for me to grow ?

[dsyfer]

They gave not one medical reason to explain how marijuana caused the heart attack, just that it happened after smoking, what a lot of media drivel and hype, maybe they should check if all the people were wearing underpants at the time....another link "wearing underpants causes heart attacks" same logic.

[budbusted007]

Im sick of these loosers, hydro is no worse than outdoor as we all know, this is all just another political beat up. Shit we must be close to an election? Why dont these fucks look at the real reason for these problems like er ice etc etc etc!!!! fuck hello it doesn't take a fukin brain surgeon to put 2 & 2 together. If the fuckin the gov gave a fuck about our health why are they still allowing companies to manufacture and sell some of the already BANNED products like superbud which contains paclobutrazol & daminazide ( alar ) highly dangerous shit still sold on the black market to poor suckers that dont know any better lets get some regulation into what we buy so we can make honest informed decisions and the same applies to these tv programs the don't have straight facts. We are unfortunate smokers that are constantly lied to from all angles with the general public given the wrong view of us oz stoners!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[torture]

i wouldnt mind seeing these case files of the young people that died? that would be quite interesting... i doubt they have any evidence at all just more bs

[Indycar]

Unfuckenbelievable, all of a sudden we have 6 deaths contributed by smoking gunja that is 6 times stronger than what the hippies used to smoke?

 

These profs 'n doc's must be on crack to come up with that one...

 

Do the research for the better of all mankind you bloody wankers (profs 'n doc's that is). Then you may actually find out how many people are suffering because of prohibition. I bet me left one that the positives of MJ massively outweigh the negatives...

 

EDIT: If they're so positive that MJ has been the cause of these deaths, provide the public with factual information to back up the statements. Just once can some arsehole stop shooting off at the mouth and provide detailed information to back up their statements? Cause i'm damn sick 'n tired of the BS (like many others) they keep coming up with.

 

[godonacid]

could australia have the first ever case of someone dying from smoking pot, could we have broken the 3000 year old record, rolf thats some stupidly funny shit.

[SukonmiSkunk]

oh yeah ... what ever.. if so many people have died from MJ we wouldnt be hearing the end of it... the pollies would be revelling in glory to put this info out in a massive revive of the reefer madness debarcle...

 

what a load of crap...

 

what gets me.. if these people died from smoking pot that was so strong... and lets just say for a sec that they did... then why is tobbacco and alcohol still legal when they kill 1000's of people on a DAILY basis...

 

oh now I get it...

all we need is for 1000's of people to be dying world wide from smoking MJ and the governments will legalise it... how could I have been so dumb all these years..

 

theres a conspiracy in here some where??? like the fact that the world is looking to be over populated.. so over populated that nasa seems to think by colonizing the moon will fix all our problems...maybe we need to cull the numbers somehow... and by legalising harmfull substances... will kill people making it look like thier own chioce... keeping the numbers down??? makes ya wonder...

 

great post brash... a funny read none the less...