Marijuana Myth Busters – The Immune System, Overdosing, And The Bloodstream
This article addresses some marijuana myths. Because of significant misinformation regarding marijuana over the past few decades, some myths have persisted for a long time.
Myth #1) Marijuana can cause death from overdose.
Answer: There has never been a reported case of a fatal overdose with marijuana. There are about 24,000 yearly fatal drug overdoses in the US, which is second only to car accidents for unintentional injury deaths. Marijuana has never been the primary cause of an overdose, as it doesn’t act on the respiratory centers like narcotics. Narcotics can decrease one’s respiratory rate to a fatal level, especially if patient’s mix various narcotics, muscle relaxers, and other sedating medications.
Myth #2) Does cannabis stay in your system for 30 days
Answer: This is true, with the following explanation. With smoked or vaporized marijuana, THC hits the bloodstream with about 1% reaching the brain and psychoactivity resulting. THC levels in the brain fall below psychoactive levels a few hours later.
THC is lipid soluble so fat cells uptake the THC as it travels around the bloodstream. They sit in the cells for a while, then get slowly released. This can take days to weeks, so it is true that marijuana may stay in the human body for 30 days. The THC has no psychoactivity in the fat cells so after those first few hours of psychoactivity no one is high anymore. Final excretion may take a few weeks.
The skinny is it can stay in the body for weeks, but only stays psychoactive for a few hours.
Myth #3) Does cannabis destroy the immune system?
Answer: In the mid 1970’s a researcher Nahas evaluated T-cells of both marijuana smokers and non-smokers. T cells are involved in the immune system and help fight infection. The initial research displayed reduced immune responses in the T cells of smokers, leading Nahas to say marijuana was dangerous since it then weakened a person’s immune system.
However, numerous scientists have studied marijuana’s effect on the immune system since, and none have reproduced the results. No difference exists in the immune systems of marijuana smokers versus non-smokers.
When the FDA approved the synthetic THC Marinol in the 1980’s, no concrete evidence was seen that THC reduced one’s immune system. A large body of research was evaluated looking at the effect of THC on humans.
The end result is that marijuana doesn’t cause immune issues in humans.
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