Illegal Drugs: Part 4

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But just how safe is marijuana? Cannabinoids actually have a remarkable safety record, particularly when compared to other therapeutically active substances.

 

Most significantly, the consumption of marijuana regardless of quantity or potency--cannot induce a fatal overdose. According to a 1995 review prepared for the World Health Organization, there are no recorded cases of overdose fatalities attributed to cannabis, and the estimated lethal dose for humans extrapolated from animal studies is so high that it cannot be achieved by users.

 

In 2008, investigators at McGill University Health Centre and McGill University in Montreal and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, reviewed 23 clinical investigations of medicinal cannabinoid drugs (typically oral THC or Sativex and eight observational studies conducted between 1966 and 2007.

 

Investigators "did not find a higher incidence rate of serious adverse events associated with medical cannabinoid use" compared to non-using controls over these three decades.

 

Much of the medical marijuana discussion has focused on the safety of marijuana compared to the safety of FDA-approved drugs.

 

In 2005 ProCon.org, an organization whose mission statement is "Promoting critical thinking, education, and informed citizenship by presenting controversial issues in a straightforward, nonpartisan primarily Pro-Con Format," sent a Freedom of Information Request to the (FDA) to find the number of deaths caused by marijuana compared to the number of deaths caused by 17 FDA-approved drugs during a specified period of time.

 

Twelve of these FDA-approved drugs were chosen because they are commonly prescribed in place of medical marijuana, while the remaining five FDA-approved drugs were randomly selected because they are widely used and recognized by the general public.

 

The FDA reports rely on health professionals to detect an "adverse event" and attribute that event to the drug, and then to voluntarily report that effect to either the FDA or the drug manufacturer.

 

The drug firm, by law, must report that event to the FDA. The FDA states "ninety percent of the FDA's reports are received from drug manufacturers".

 

An adverse event is any incident where the use of a medication (drug or biologic) at any dose is suspected to have resulted in an adverse outcome in a patient.

 

The resulting report compiled by the organization provided whether the drug was the primary suspect in the death or secondary suspect of contributing to the death. Marijuana was not the primary suspect in any of the 11,687 deaths reported between January 1, 1997 and June 30, 2005. It was a secondary suspect in 279 deaths.

 

The FDA approved drugs were divided into four categories:

 

1) Anti--Emetics [Compazine, Reglan, Marinol, Zofran, Anzemet, Kytrill and Tigan] which were the primary suspect for 196 deaths and the secondary suspect for 429 deaths;

 

2) Anti-Spasmodics [baclofen, Zanaflex] which were the primary suspect for 118 deaths and the secondary suspect for 56 deaths;

 

3) Anti-Psychotics [Haldol, Lithium, Neurotin] which were the primary suspect for 1593 deaths and the secondary suspect for 702 deaths; and

 

4) other popular drugs [Ritalin, Wellbutrin, Adderall, Viagra, Vioxx] which were the primary suspect for 8101 deaths and the secondary suspect for 492 deaths.

 

The final total on the 17 FDA drugs is 10,008 primary suspect of deaths and 1679 secondary suspect of death versus no deaths with marijuana as the primary suspect of death and 279 as secondary suspect.

 

Acknowledgment

 

I wish to acknowledge extensive use of materials prepared by NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, along with materials from ProCon.org. and the National Library of Medicine.

 

Author: Dorsett Bennett

Date: 3 February 2009

Source: Salem News

Copyright: © 2008 Salem-News.com