Posted on 04/20/2014 6:04:41 PM PDT by mgist
DENVER – A college student eats more than the recommended dose of a marijuana-laced cookie and jumps to his death from a hotel balcony. A husband with no history of violence is accused of shooting his wife in the head, possibly after eating pot-infused candy. The two recent deaths have stoked concerns about Colorado’s recreational marijuana industry and the effects of the drug, especially since cookies, candy and other pot edibles can be exponentially more potent than a joint.
“We’re seeing hallucinations, they become sick to their stomachs, they throw up, they become dizzy and very anxious,” said Al Bronstein, medical director of the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center. Studies are mixed about whether there is any link between marijuana and violence. Still, pot legalization opponents said the deaths are a sign of future dangers.
Twenty-six people have reported poisonings from marijuana edibles this year, when the center started tracking such exposures. Six were children who swallowed innocent-looking edibles, most of which were in plain sight.
Five of those kids were sent to emergency rooms, and two to hospitals for intensive care, Bronstein said. Children were nauseous and sleepy, and doctors worried about their respiratory systems shutting down. Supporters of the pot law and some experts counter that alcohol causes far more problems among users, and the issues with pot can be largely addressed through better regulations.
The deaths occurred as Colorado lawmakers are scrambling to create safety regulations for the largely unmonitored marijuana snacks. On Thursday, the Legislature advanced a package of bills that would lower the amount of THC that could be permitted in a serving of food and require more extensive warning labels.
“It really is time for regulators, and the industry, to look at how do we move forward more responsibly with edible products,” said Brian Vicente, who helped lead the state’s legalization campaign.
An autopsy report listed marijuana intoxication as a significant contributing factor in the death of 19-year-old Levy Thamba Pongi. Authorities said Pongi, who traveled from Wyoming to Denver with friends to try marijuana, ate six times more than the amount recommended by a seller. In the moments before his death, he spoke erratically and threw things around his hotel room.
RELATED: College Student Ate 6 Times Recommended Amount Of Pot Cookie Before Jumping To Death
Toxicologists later found that the cookie Pongi ate contained as much THC – marijuana’s intoxicating chemical – as six high-quality joints.
Kristine Kirk, left, and Richard Kirk, right 
Less is known about Richard Kirk, 47, who was charged in Denver with shooting his 44-year-old wife, Kristine, to death while she was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher. Police said his wife reported that her husband had consumed marijuana-laced candy, but no information has been released about potency. The public defender’s office has declined comment on the allegations against Kirk.
RELATED: Husband Charged With Murder In Wife’s Shooting Death “Sadly, we’re going to start to understand over time all of the damage and all of the problems associated with marijuana,” said Thornton police Sgt. Jim Gerhardt, speaking in his capacity as a board member of the Colorado Drug Investigators Association. “It’s going to dispel the myth that there’s no downside, that there’s no side effect, to this drug. It’s sad that people are going to have to be convinced with the blood of Coloradans.”
State lawmakers last year required edible pot to be sold in “serving sizes” of 10 milligrams of THC. Lawmakers also charged marijuana regulators with setting potency-testing guidelines to ensure consumers know how much pot they’re eating. The guidelines are slated to be unveiled next month.
For now, the industry is trying to educate consumers about the strength of pot-infused foods and warning them to wait up to an hour to feel any effects before eating more. Still, complaints from visitors and first-time users have been rampant.
“One of the problems is people become very impatient,” Bronstein said. “They eat a brownie or a chocolate chip cookie and they get no effect, so then they stack the doses, and all the sudden, they get an extreme effect that they weren’t expecting.”
Last year, the poison center run by Bronstein received 126 calls concerning adverse reactions to marijuana. So far this year – after pot sales became legal on Jan. 1 – the center has gotten 65 calls. Bronstein attributed the spike to the higher concentrations of THC in marijuana that has become available.
Although millions of Americans have used pot without becoming violent, Bronstein said such behavior is possible depending on the type of hallucinations a user experiences. Toxicologists say genetic makeup, health issues and other factors also can make a difference. “With these products, everybody is inexperienced,” Bronstein said. “It’s the first time people have been able to buy it in a store. People need to be respectful of these products.”
That house looks like the Ramsey house. Where the kid went missing and was found dead, possibly by the parents hand. Haunted house oddity?
Potheads often demand gun control, because it’s illegal for them to possess firearms.
They don’t care if it causes brain damage. It’s invisible to the user for the most part. The rest of us suffer, but the user doesn’t give a damn. They get off on it and that’s all and I mean ALL that matters in life for them. The lies and justifications and utter insanity flow from the use quickly.
Alcohol isn’t good for you, but it just doesn’t screw people up at low to moderate intake. At least not mentally. Pot even at low use changes a person. They might even think for the better. A more ‘open mind’ and so on. But reality is very different from their deluded and fooled mind.
This one is in Denver,the other was in Boulder.
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In the coming new world they need to keep the peons under control. What better way then sex and drugs.
During the pot legalization debate on Fox News, one opponent laughed about legalization and warned that he and a group of lawyers are drawing up the legal grounds and evidence to sue the pot companies like big tobacco. They are going to wait ten years so the pot companies become very large corporations, plus ten years worth of consumer data. All they need is clients.
I don’t care if people use it and it looks like it was legalized fair and square in Colorado and that’s fine with me.
I resent the lies that people tell about the drug, e.g. it’s just some harmless thing that people do in the privacy of their homes while listening to Phish CDs and it doesn’t affect anyone other than the user. It can be harmful, and it can affect others, just like the alcohol and tobacco and anything you can cite. I’d just like to some honesty about marijuana use similar to the honesty we hear about alcohol and other products. People aren’t making informed choices about marijuana that they are making about other legal drugs.
No one will know how many dopers are being charged with DUI. The police only use a device for measuring alcohol intoxication.
Give it away free to all that want it and we can eliminate thousands of pot heads!
But the house looks very similar, same brick, window affects, trim etc. maybe same builder. Or maybe something more sinister...../S
Looks like the wheels are coming off sooner than they expected.
It seems to me that the deaths were by natural selection. The stupid are killing themselves and removing their genes from the pool.
Time will tell, though, and if it gets repealed, we'll know for sure.
/johnny
Um, gee, was nobody around in the 60s?
People are going to smoke pot whether it’s legal or illegal. That much is for certain. But the public has been sold a bill of goods about all this “medical marijuana” BS. “Medical Marijuana” was originally conceived as a backdoor towards legalization but the side effect is that people have internalized all this nonsense about how it is “good for you” and how it’s “natural” and a “plant” and cures cancer and iron poor blood. But then again, people in general are stoopid and pot smokers are stoopider than most.
Yeah totally agree and that is my main argument as well.
When a death is involved perhaps there would be blood analysis.
Jenny’s Favorite Cakes I hear.
The movie Reefer Madness was not a documentary. Looks like the police state is trying to get back their cash cow.
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