What A Marijuana OVERDOSE Looks Like

What A Marijuana Overdose Looks Like

What Does a Marijuana Overdose Look Like? (NSFW) from CannabisNet on Vimeo.

A 53 year old father from Omaha made headlines a few weeks ago when he consumed 4 brownies, which belonged to his grown up kids, not knowing that they consumed pot.

Here’s the clincher: The headline actually said that he then “said mean things to his cat.”

As he and his life were watching TV, he said that he was starting to have “bad anxiety”. Although she tried to call her kids to ask what was in the brownies, she couldn’t get a hold of them. So she called 911.

According to the Omaha World Herald, this then happened:

“Paramedics called to the scene who checked the man found his vital signs to be normal. But they noted that he was displaying odd behavior — crawling around on the floor, randomly using profanities and calling the family cat a "bitch."

The man told paramedics he felt like “he’s trippin’.” He declined their offer to be taken to the hospital.

The paramedics helped the man to his bedroom and he got into bed. The man and his wife were told to call 911 again if his situation worsened.”

Yes, boys and girls. This is what happens when you “overdose on marijuana.” There might be some anxiety, you’ll definitely act weird, and for Chrissakes: you MIGHT even say some mean things to your cat!

The best antidote to having a little too much to eat or toke, in my experience, is to just sleep it off. This case though, is a perfect example of why you need to be careful with dosage for edibles.

chemdawg strain

It’s Just Not Possible

While overdoses on anti anxiety medications and opioids are happening each day, it’s scientifically not possible to overdose on pot. The National Cancer Institute puts it pretty well: “Because cannabinoid receptors, unlike opioid receptors, are not located in the brainstem areas controlling respiration, lethal overdoses from Cannabis and cannabinoids do not occur.” Opioid receptors are located in parts of your brain which help us with breathing, this is why taking painkillers can result in death because a person can stop breathing - just like that, when you take too much. On the other hand, the cannabinoid receptors in the human body don’t affect breathing and respiration. Smoking pot won’t cause you to stop breathing - you’ll probably just gasp for air when you’re in fits of stoned laughter, but that’s about it.

The therapeutic index is another way of measuring the safety of a drug. It tells you the ratio between lethal doses compared to therapeutic doses. The therapeutic index of pot is 40,000:1, which means that you’d have to consume 40,000 more of a usual dose of pot to die. Opioids have a much lower therapeutic index; morphine’s therapeutic level is just 70:1.

Other things that are actually legal, like drinking and smoking cigarettes, are far more deadly. I love wine, but isn’t it scary that we can drink unregulated amounts of booze in the comforts of our own home and nobody will even budge? Drinking yourself to death is 100% possible and REAL. In fact, a report published in the American Scientist states that “alcohol is more lethal than many other commonly abused substances.”

The report also adds “Drinking a mere 10 times the normal amount of alcohol within 5 or 10 minutes can prove fatal, whereas smoking or eating marijuana might require something like 1,000 times the usual dose to cause death.”

The stuff in pot that gets you high - THC - has been studied several thousand times. In the field of medicine and science, THC is known as “psychoactive” and can get you to feel high, stoned, or euphoric. However there is no research that shows that THC can be toxic or harmful to the human body in any way.

brain and cannabis use

Your Brain Protects You From “Too Much” Pot

Scientists have also discovered that pregnenolone, a hormone produced by the brain, can even actually protect you from consuming too much pot by inhibiting the intoxication. The study’s author, Dr. Pier Vincenzo Piazza, states: “When the brain is stimulated by high doses of THC, it produces pregnenolone – a 3,000 percent increase – that inhibits the effects of THC.” In simpler terms, this means that when THC attaches itself to our receptors in the brain, it will then release pregnenolone, which reduces the impact of THC on receptors, which can send signals to users preventing them from getting too stoned. The study was actually conducted so that the scientists could learn about managing “addiction” to marijuana although it led to some very useful and helpful information on overdosing too.

Consuming good quality cannabis is always important. There are clearly no harmful side effects (it’s good for you!) and overdosing isn’t possible, but some marijuana farmers use toxins and other chemicals during cultivation to increase their yield - these are the only things you have to watch out for when buying or using pot.

This Is What A Marijuana Overdose Looks Like, Be Ready.