Oh Shit: Death By Pot Cookie Is Something That Can Happen

We’ve been too cavalier. All of us.

In 2014, a 19-year-old Coloradan tragically died after eating too much of a pot cookie and jumping off a fourth floor balcony. Apparently, the salesperson instructed the purchaser (a friend of his) to break the cookie up into six pieces, with each piece containing the recommended dosage of 10 mg of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in marijuana.

The teenager took the recommended dose but didn’t feel any effects after about an hour, so he ate the rest.

A newly-released report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention depicts the man’s terrifying final hours:

During the next 2 hours, he reportedly exhibited erratic speech and hostile behaviors. Approximately 3.5 hours after initial ingestion, and 2.5 hours after consuming the remainder of the cookie, he jumped off a fourth floor balcony and died from trauma. The autopsy, performed 29 hours after time of death, found marijuana intoxication as a chief contributing factor.

The report indicates “a need for improved public health messaging to reduce the risk for overconsumption of THC.”

It is not unheard of for people to experience psychotic symptoms after taking super high doses of THC — and as the potency of marijuana increases, health officials have seen an uptick in stoners visiting emergency rooms suffering from temporary psychotic episodes. In fact, ER visits involving pot increased 52 percent from 2004 to 2011.

How many times have you let your high greediness propel you to do the same thing? Weed was supposed to be the one thing that would never let us down, but apparently it, like everything else, might kill us.