Legal marijuana linked to two deaths in Colorado

Medical professionals have always said that legalizing marijuana was a mistake and now two tragic deaths have occurred that back up their theory.

A 19 year old college student Levy Thamba Pongi travelled with a group of friends from Wyoming to Colorado to try it. After eating a marijuana-laced cookie, he started talking irrationally and began throwing things around his hotel room.  Then he jumped off the balcony to his death.

In another case, Richard Kirk 47, a man with no history of violence, shot his wife in the head after eating a pot-infused sweet.  She was on the phone to a 911 operator asking for help after her husband started hallucinating.

It is now believed that cookies, sweets and other drug edibles are much more potent than a joint and can be extremely dangerous.

So far this year, 26 people in Colorado have been poisoned by marijuana edibles.  Medical director of Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Centre said "We're seeing hallucinations.....they become sick to their stomachs, they throw up, become dizzy and very anxious."

The autopsy of the student revealed that the cookie/cookies he ate contained as much THC as six high quality joints.

The Colorado law states that edible pot must be sold in serving sizes of 10 milligrams of THC but no allowance was made for human stupidity. The law makers should have realized that because it's now legal, many people are trying pot for the first time.  They expect to get an immediate high after eating one cookie and when it doesn't happen, they get impatient and have another, and maybe even another, until suddenly they experience an extreme effect all at once.

Crime stats have dropped in the Denver area in the last three months but it will take a few years before the true effects of legalizing pot are known.