4 ms·

> See, before opioid prohibition, deaths from opioid use were quite rare. You ever heard a pothead drone on about "it's nearly impossible to overdose from smoki

> See, before opioid prohibition, deaths from opioid use were quite rare. You ever heard a pothead drone on about "it's nearly impossible to overdose from smoking marijuana"? The s I'm not an expert. Can you please link to studies to verify this? We're talking about overdosing and I don't think marijuana falls into that category.

stevenwoo 10y ago
LD50 for marijuana? http://www.mindthesciencegap.org/2013/03/25/how-safe-is-marijuana-a-toxicological-perspective/ http://www.mindthesciencegap.org/2013/03/25/how-safe-is-mari...
mirimir 10y ago
It's really hard to OD on opium. Now purified morphine, sure. And it's the same with coca leaves vs cocaine vs crack. Can you imagine a THC analog that's 10^4 times more potent? Is overdose really impossible? I suspect that we'll find out, in a few years :(
- fragmede 10y ago
  Sadly, you're very right. "Spice", or "bath salts", as synthetic cannabinoids have been called, with much higher potency than marijuana, have already hit the recreational pharmacutical market with predicably negative consequences.
  - moepstar 10y ago
    ...yep they have, and in some cases with addicts having side effects that are unknown in marijuana (ab)use. Now, if it was legal people wouldn't have to resort getting that crap as a replacement.
  - zkms 10y ago
    Yeah, "designer drugs" -- the products someone trying to make a drug that works on the same systems but is different enough in structure from anything on a Controlled Substances list are bad news. The problem lies in the fact that many drugs with long histories of human use (opium, marijuana) have long histories of human use, and so they've been tested extensively and are known not to produce horrid adverse effects. Trying to replicate a compound that has been tested for efficacy and safety over literal millenia (and not being allowed to just change tiny things on the molecule) is not something that is likely to give results close to the original. Ironically, the obverse task -- trying to create a molecule that acts on similar neurobiological targets as an illegal drug but doesnt get people high or look like a molecule from an illegal drug -- is similarly fraught. A flagrant example is BIA 10-2474, an experimental drug meant to target the endocannabinoid system in a roundabout way -- not by directly activating receptors, but by inhibiting an enzyme that degrades endogenous chemicals that activate endocannabinoid receptors -- which would have similar effects as directly activating those receptors. A trial of it killed one person and irreversibly neurologically damaged a few others. We criminalise drugs at deep costs to research and medecine (I haven't even gotten into the use of MDMA in psychotherapy or ketamine for depression), and regardless on what side of the law they work on, it is a very difficult task for chemists to try to imitate drugs that have been with humanity for millenia when they aren't allowed to make molecules that look like blacklisted ones.
zkms 10y ago
> We're talking about overdosing and I don't think marijuana falls into that category. I mentioned the (commonly known) lack of marijuana overdoses to analogise it with the (lesser known) utter rarity of overdoses with smoked opium: low potency mixed with a route of administration that acts as a dead man's switch (if you nod out, you'll likely drop the opium pipe) makes for safe drug use.

stevenwoo 10y ago

LD50 for marijuana? http://www.mindthesciencegap.org/2013/03/25/how-safe-is-marijuana-a-toxicological-perspective/ http://www.mindthesciencegap.org/2013/03/25/how-safe-is-mari...

mirimir 10y ago

It's really hard to OD on opium. Now purified morphine, sure. And it's the same with coca leaves vs cocaine vs crack. Can you imagine a THC analog that's 10^4 times more potent? Is overdose really impossible? I suspect that we'll find out, in a few years :(

fragmede 10y ago
Sadly, you're very right. "Spice", or "bath salts", as synthetic cannabinoids have been called, with much higher potency than marijuana, have already hit the recreational pharmacutical market with predicably negative consequences.
- moepstar 10y ago
  ...yep they have, and in some cases with addicts having side effects that are unknown in marijuana (ab)use. Now, if it was legal people wouldn't have to resort getting that crap as a replacement.
- zkms 10y ago
  Yeah, "designer drugs" -- the products someone trying to make a drug that works on the same systems but is different enough in structure from anything on a Controlled Substances list are bad news. The problem lies in the fact that many drugs with long histories of human use (opium, marijuana) have long histories of human use, and so they've been tested extensively and are known not to produce horrid adverse effects. Trying to replicate a compound that has been tested for efficacy and safety over literal millenia (and not being allowed to just change tiny things on the molecule) is not something that is likely to give results close to the original. Ironically, the obverse task -- trying to create a molecule that acts on similar neurobiological targets as an illegal drug but doesnt get people high or look like a molecule from an illegal drug -- is similarly fraught. A flagrant example is BIA 10-2474, an experimental drug meant to target the endocannabinoid system in a roundabout way -- not by directly activating receptors, but by inhibiting an enzyme that degrades endogenous chemicals that activate endocannabinoid receptors -- which would have similar effects as directly activating those receptors. A trial of it killed one person and irreversibly neurologically damaged a few others. We criminalise drugs at deep costs to research and medecine (I haven't even gotten into the use of MDMA in psychotherapy or ketamine for depression), and regardless on what side of the law they work on, it is a very difficult task for chemists to try to imitate drugs that have been with humanity for millenia when they aren't allowed to make molecules that look like blacklisted ones.

zkms 10y ago

> We're talking about overdosing and I don't think marijuana falls into that category. I mentioned the (commonly known) lack of marijuana overdoses to analogise it with the (lesser known) utter rarity of overdoses with smoked opium: low potency mixed with a route of administration that acts as a dead man's switch (if you nod out, you'll likely drop the opium pipe) makes for safe drug use.