Chef, 17, “killed by cannabis”

A TEENAGE trainee chef suffered a fatal heart attack caused by years of smoking cannabis, a coroner has ruled.

Hadrian Gardner, 17, collapsed outside the Cheshire restaurant where he worked on October 7 last year.

But Geoff Roberts, deputy coroner for Cheshire, said Hadrian had died ‘as a result of the direct toxic effects on the heart that the use of cannabis had’.

Excuse me, can someone please explain to me how a non-toxic herb had toxic effects?  Coroner Roberts, do you really understand what the word “toxic” means?

As this story made the rounds of my drug law reform contacts through many “Reply Alls”, the reactions were classic.  Dr. Franjo Grotenhermen, chairman of the German Association for Cannabis as Medicine said, “The claim of a heart attack without acute cannabis use is nonsense.”  Dr. Ethan Russo, one of the world’s leading cannabis researchers (and discoverer of 5,000 year old super pot!), chiming in from Paris wrote simply, “Pure fabrication.”  California NORML’s Dr. Dale Gieringer added, “Another alleged cannabis fatality. To me, it sounds like reefer madness.”

The inquest at Macclesfield town hall was told that Hadrian had already suffered one heart attack in 2007.

On that occasion, doctors had been able to revive him.

Could a person have a heart attack from smoking weed?  It’s possible.  Cannabis smoking does have the side effect of tachycardia (fast heartbeat) for some people, and if you have a weak, damaged, or diseased heart, you might want to think about abstaining.  Or, perhaps, if you’ve had a previous heart attack at the age of fifteen.  So, did Gardner puff a big fatty before keeling over?

Dr Mark Nicol, who treated Hadrian at Macclesfield A&E department, said in his report: “This case highlights that cannabis use is potentially life-threatening.”

The coroner said: “We have heard how over a period of time, for some years, (Hadrian) had used cannabis and perhaps other illegal substances.

Wait a minute, now we’ve gone from a teenager killed by “toxic” cannabis to a kid who used “other illegal substances”?  So naturally, the UK media splashes the cannabis use all about the headlines and these “other illegal substances” get buried in the final grafs.  Typical.

Dr Sally Hales, who carried out the post mortem, found no traces of cannabis or other illegal drugs in Hadrian’s body.

However, he had an inflammation of the heart, which, she said, was most likely caused by ‘a history of using cannabis, amphetamines and cocaine.’

via Chef, 17, ‘killed by cannabis’ – News – Manchester Evening News.

Amphetamines and cocaine, used by a teenaged boy with an inflamed heart, a boy who had a heart attack requiring medical revival two years ago!  But does the headline say “Chef, 17, killed by drug abuse” or “killed by speed and coke”?