Medical Marijuana ProCon .org |
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(January 1, 1997 to June 30, 2005) |
| Medical Marijuana ProCon.org |
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(January 1, 1997 to June 30, 2005) |
Much of the medical marijuana discussion has focused on the safety of marijuana compared to the safety of FDA-approved drugs. On 6/24/05 ProCon.org sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to find the number of deaths caused by marijuana compared to the number of deaths caused by 17 FDA-approved drugs. Twelve of these FDA-approved drugs were chosen because they are commonly prescribed in place of medical marijuana, while the remaining five FDA-approved drugs were randomly selected because they are widely used and recognized by the general public.
We chose January 1, 1997 as our starting date as it is the beginning of the first year following the November 1996 approval of the first state medical marijuana laws (such as California's Proposition 215). The FDA reports we read from September 13, 2005 to October 14, 2005 included drug deaths "to present", which was the date each report was compiled for our request. We cut off the counting as of June 30, 2005 to provide a uniform end-date to the various reports.
On August 25, 2005 the FDA sent us 12 CDs and five printed reports containing copies of their Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) report on each drug requested. These reports included all adverse events reported to the FDA, only a portion of which included deaths. We manually counted the number of deaths reported on each drug from the FDA-supplied information.
A review of the FDA Adverse Events reports also revealed some deaths where marijuana was at least a concomitant drug (a drug also used at the time of death) in some cases. On 10/14/05 we requested a copy of the adverse events reported deaths for marijuana/cannabis. Those results will be published on our site when the report is received and processed. In the meanwhile we have researched other sources that state marijuana has lead to some deaths and others who report that marijuana has never caused a death from an overdose. These data are posted in our chart below.
| II. Cause of Death Categories |
We present what the FDA lists as the Primary and Secondary "Suspect" drug for each adverse event leading to death. The FDA defines "suspect drug" in the AERS to mean "the drug that the initial reporter deemed most likely to be associated with the reactions." (FDA 7/18/05)
The FDA AERS reports rely on health professionals to detect an "adverse event" and attribute that event to the drug, and then to voluntarily report that effect to either the FDA or the drug manufacturer. The drug firm, by law, must report that event to the FDA. The FDA states "ninety percent of the FDA's reports are received from drug manufacturers" on page one of its "Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) Brief Description with Caveats of System."
| III. FDA Disclaimer of Information |
Included in the 12 CDs and five printed reports from the FDA was the following disclosure:
"The information contained in the reports has not been scientifically or otherwise verified. For any given report there is no certainty that the suspected drug caused the reaction. This is because physicians are encouraged to report suspected reactions. The event may have been related to the underlying disease for which the drug was given to concurrent drugs being taken or may have occurred by chance at the same time the suspected drug was taken.
Numbers from these data must be carefully interpreted as reported rates and not occurrence rates. True incidence rates cannot be determined from this database. Comparisons of drugs cannot be made from these data."
-- 7/18/05 - FDA Office of Pharmacoepidemiology and Statistical Science, "Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) Brief Description with Caveats of System"[Editor's Note - ProCon.org makes no claim that the data below reflects occurance rates. The information is presented for our readers' benefit who may feel that the relative comparisons have value.]
DRUG CLASSIFICATION |
Specific Drugs per Category |
Primary Suspect of the Death |
Secondary Suspect (contributing to death) |
Total Deaths Reported 1/1/97 - 6/30/05 |
|
| A. MARIJUANA also known as: Cannabis sativa L |
|||||
| B. ANTI-EMETICS (used to treat vomiting) |
196 |
429 |
625 |
||
| C. ANTI-SPASMODICS (used to treat muscle spasms) |
118 |
56 |
174 | ||
| D. ANTI-PSYCHOTICS (used to treat psychosis) |
1,593 |
702 |
2,295 | ||
| E. OTHER POPULAR DRUGS (used to treat various conditions including ADD, depression, narcolepsy, erectile dysfunction, and pain) |
8,101 |
492 |
8,593 | ||
F. TOTALS of A-E |
Number of Drugs in Total |
Primary Suspect of the Death |
Secondary Suspect (contributing to death) |
Total Deaths Reported 1/1/97 - 6/30/05 |
|
|
1 |
||||
|
17 |
10,008 |
1,679 |
11,687 | |
| V. Chart of Deaths from Marijuana and 17 FDA-Approved Drugs |
| F. TOTALS of A-E
|
Primary Suspect |
Secondary Suspect |
Total Deaths
Reported 1/1/97 - 6/30/05 | |
|
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|
10,008 |
1,679 |
11,687 | |
Has marijuana caused any deaths? |
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General Reference (not clearly pro or con)
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PRO (Yes) |
CON (No) |
"Causality is a difficult assessment in forensic toxicology. It is often an 'exclusion diagnosis,' and so it is in our cases. I'm therefore not sure about how to classify those deaths. |
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VII. Full Text of All 17 FDA "Adverse Event" Reports
- Viagra
- Vioxx
- Wellbutrin
- Zanaflex
- Zofran
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