Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/06/11/louisiana-coroner-definitely.html
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"I’m 100 percent sure of the readings we’ve found,”
Famous last words…
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An excellent lead in to John Oliver’s piece on the state of America’s system of issuing death certificates, and how most coroners don’t have to have any medical qualifications whatsoever.
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“definitely did some research” translates to “in college I accidentally ate a pot brownie and felt like I was going to die”.
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“I definitely did some research” is not exactly what we would call gold standard evidence in the research world.
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“I will never be not high again!” 
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In the excerpt, Humphreys seems to be saying, “So what if she did die of a THC overdose?” Which I would agree with. It must be possible to overdose on THC, if you can consume enough of it fast enough. If someone finally manages to do it after several millennia of use, do we need to care, or even take note?
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But what tests did he do that support his conclusion?
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I’m sure there is an amount that can cause overdose, just like there is with nicotine and alcohol, but I’m not sure how easy it is to reach that point with cannabis, stuff down an entire brick of hash? Guzzle a pint of oil? Chances are you’d vomit back up before your body could absorb enough to kill you.
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The best estimates of THC lethality are ~1000x what was found in the patient’s blood. Since no one has died that value is speculative. If a person is smoking however, suffocation from smoke inhalation would likely come before a THC overdose
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Does anyone know what the poor unfortunate victim was vapeing so I can test it myself, y’know for science?
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Luckily absolutely no stereotypes were harmed in the making of this story; so the lack of local medical expertise will be less of an issue.
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And something an honest scientist would be very very hard pressed to say about most findings, particularly when you are dealing with a literally one-in-billions case. THC is detectable by standardized lab testing, and if her demise was due to THC overdose, the level should have been insanely high. Now, if this is “I have a dead body, and there is detectable THC in it, therefore…” which is what it sounds like, then it is utterly ignorable except as an example of horrible reasoning to use as teaching tool later on.
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Sounds like she was vaping. From what I can tell, that means it’s almost unknowable what she was inhaling besides the THC. Probably a lot of production residue from the largely plastic vape thing.
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THC is a partial agonist of the CB1 receptor. I’m not sure of the mechanics here, but from what I understand, this causes the effect to top out, so that it would take an exponential amounts to get higher. This is what makes THC particularly safe as far as overdose goes. Other synthetic cannabinoids are pretty much all full agonists, so they are far more dangerous.
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Or, “Hippies are commies and drugs are from Satan, so the drugs definitely killed her. Praise the Lord!”
:-/
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Vaping possibilities:
- Severe reaction to PG or PEG or MCT oil.
- Lipid pneumonia from MCT oil - but jury is out whether this is possible.
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This would be my best estimate of the thought “process.”
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