His reasoning? She had THC in her system and his team couldn’t come up with any other explanations for her death. The doctor in question, Christy Montegut, told The New Orleans Advocate: Let’s start with how much THC the woman consumed. The coroner’s report indicates she had 8.4 nanograms of THC in her system. In technical terms, that means she would have consumed enough cannabis to put her at more than four times the amount experts say would impair her ability to drive. For comparison, Author David Schmader’s book “Weed: The User’s Guide” explains why concluding a THC overdose was the sole cause of death is actually a silly notion. He wrote: And, let’s be clear here: vaping 8.4 nanograms of cannabis isn’t exactly a Herculean effort for heavy cannabis users. We aren’t talking about someone doing something extraordinary like smoking 100 joints in a row or eating a kilo of leaf. So, even a cursory glance at the myriad studies both old and recent should inform any reporting physician that it’s ridiculous to make a “100-percent positive” declaration that someone’s the first person in recorded history to OD on cannabis. But let’s pretend, just for a second, that someone could die from an overdose of THC. What would that actually mean? According to Keith Humphreys, a former senior policy adviser at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, it would be an astounding statistical anomaly. He told The New Orleans Advocate: This isn’t the first time someone’s claimed that cannabis is deadly – this type of rhetoric pops up every few months or so. But usually, it’s the media sensationalizing a small claim made by a research group. In others, scientists try to pass off research on synthetic cannbanoid compounds as authentic studies on natural cannabis. And the scientific community immediately debunks each and every claim. Because actual scientific rigor matters. It’s beyond the pale that this coroner basically guessed that THC “must” have been responsible for this woman’s death because it was the only drug present in her system. The Advocate reports she’d visited an emergency room to treat a chest infection in the days before her death. Whether the infection contributed to her death remains unknown. Instead of investigating further, Montegut’s turned this woman’s death into a controversial story claiming he’s discovered a historical medical first. He hasn’t.
