So they poured out for the men to eat. And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat thereof. (Kings 4:40)
What is more dangerous: Taking a bath or passing around a joint? Swimming or smoking marijuana in a bong? Taking aspirin or eating brownies laced with marijuana?
If you said a joint, a bong, and marijuana-laced brownies, then go to the head of the class.
According to the National Vital Statistics Reports issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 2.7 million people die in the United States each year. The fifteen leading causes of death are:
- Diseases of heart (heart disease)
- Malignant neoplasms (cancer)
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases
- Accidents (unintentional injuries)
- Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke)
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Diabetes mellitus (diabetes)
- Influenza and pneumonia
- Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis (kidney disease)
- Intentional self-harm (suicide)
- Septicemia
- Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis
- Essential hypertension and hypertensive renal disease (hypertension)
- Parkinson’s disease
- Pneumonitis due to solids and liquid
According to the CDC:
- Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States.
- Smoking causes more deaths each year than the following causes combined: HIV, illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, firearm-related incidents.
- More than 10 times as many U.S. citizens have died prematurely from cigarette smoking than have died in all the wars fought by the United States.
- Cigarette smoking increases risk for death from all causes in men and women.
According to the National Safety Council’s data on accidents, hundreds of people in the United States die every year from contact with animals, contact with hot substances, contact with machinery, or accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed, and thousands of people die from suicide, car accidents, poisoning, falling, bicycle or motorcycle accidents, drowning, choking, exposure, or getting hit by a car while crossing the street.
And what is the federal government worried about? Marijuana use.
According to a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) “Drug Fact Sheet”:
Marijuana is a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act. Schedule I drugs are classified as having a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.
What the DEA “Drug Fact Sheet” didn’t say is that heroin, LSD, and ecstasy are also Schedule I drugs and that morphine, oxycodone, cocaine, and fentanyl are only Schedule II drugs.
A review of the Food and Drug Administration’s Adverse Events reports found that there were over 10,000 deaths from seventeen FDA-approved drugs and 0 deaths from marijuana.
And in the DEA “Drug Fact Sheet,” under the heading “Overdose effects,” we read this: “No death from overdose of marijuana has been reported.”
This does not mean that using marijuana is safe, medically necessary, recommended, or moral. It does mean that the federal government is wasting billions of dollars of the taxpayers’ money to wage war on a plant.
There is no death in the pot. But you better be very careful the next time you ride a bike, go swimming, cross the street, take a bath, light fireworks, use machinery, drive a car, or get out of bed.
