Marijuana...Get the facts!!
Tetrahydrocannabinol is a very safe drug.
Laboratory animals (rats, mice, dogs, monkeys) can tolerate doses of up to 1,000 mg/kg (milligrams per kilogram). This would be equivalent to a 70 kg person swallowing 70 grams of the drug -- about 5,000 times more than is required to produce a high.
Despite the widespread illicit use of cannabis there are very few if any instances of people dying from an overdose. In Britain, official government statistics listed five deaths from cannabis in the period 1993-1995 but on closer examination these proved to have been deaths due to inhalation of vomit that could not be directly attributed to cannabis. By comparison with other commonly used recreational drugs these statistics are impressive.
Marijuana appears to be readily available to almost all 12th graders; in 2005 86% reported that they think it would be 'very easy' or 'fairly easy' for them to get it -- almost twice the number who reported ever having used it (45%).
After marijuana, 12th-grade students indicated that amphetamines are among the easiest drugs to obtain (51%).
Although people may think that the Drug War targets drug smugglers and 'King Pins,' in 2007, 47.4 percent of the 1,841,182 total arrests for drug abuse violations were for marijuana -- a total of 872,720.
Of those, 775,137 people were arrested for marijuana possession alone.
By contrast in 2000 a total of 734,497 Americans were arrested for marijuana offenses, of which 646,042 were for possession alone. Drug war facts
FBI
