LETTER OF THE WEEK

NO WORRIES IN EATING CANNABIS

By Matthew M. Elrod

Re: "That little joint could kill your child, MD says," June 26.

I would have hoped that it goes without saying that parents should
not leave cannabis within reach of young children, but if a child
dies from cannabis poisoning it will be the first such death in
recorded history.

Whole cannabis is non-toxic and it is physically impossible to
fatally overdose on it. In contrast, dozens of children die from
eating cigarettes and cigarette butts every year. Hundreds more are
poisoned from eating house and garden plants.

Further, whole cannabis is not psychoactive when ingested orally,
unless it is first heated to several hundred degrees for a period of
time or, as your cautionary article mentioned, baked into food.

All the same, a child would have to consume several times its own
weight in cannabis brownies to fatally overdose on cannabinoids, long
after the caffeine, chocolate and sugar consumed reached toxic levels.

Matthew M. Elrod

Victoria

Pubdate: Sat, 28 Jun 2008

Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)

Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n617/a07.html