Man Charged With Drugged Driving in Fatal Car Crash

Last week a Utah man was charged with driving under the influence of marijuana in a car crash that claimed the life of another.

According to news outlets, witnesses saw driver try to hide a bag of marijuana immediately following the crash.

We have written before about the increase in drugged driving incidents elsewhere around the country.

For instance, in December of 2014, Oklahoma authorities reported a man with marijuana both in his system and on his person drove into oncoming traffic, crashing into another vehicle and killing its driver.

That same month the National Institute on Drug Abuse updated its marijuana research paper, saying, “Marijuana is the illicit drug most frequently found in the blood of drivers who have been involved in accidents, including fatal ones,” and citing research that marijuana is increasingly detected in fatal vehicle accidents.

In 2011, the Office of National Drug Control Policy released a report analyzing traffic accidents from 2005 – 2009. The report noted, “Among fatally injured males who tested positive for drugs, 28 percent tested positive for cannabinoids compared with 17 percent of females,” and that, “Cannabinoids were reported in 43 percent of fatally injured drivers under age 24 who tested positive for drugs.”

You can read more about this incident here.

Five Year Old Hospitalized After Eating Marijuana Cake for Breakfast

320px-Cannabis_PlantAccording to news outlets, a Georgia woman was arrested last week after her five year old said he ate a marijuana cake for breakfast.

The child was taken to the hospital for treatment following the incident; according to officials, his pulse was measured at over 200 beats per minute.

According to the child’s mother, the cake laced with marijuana was given to her by another person.

Unfortunately this is not an isolated incident. We have written before about how children and adults mistake marijuana edibles for traditional candy.

Emergency rooms are seeing more cases of children accidentally ingesting marijuana, and marijuana is increasingly linked with schizophrenia and other mental problems.

Here are just a few examples of emergency situations caused by marijuana:

  1. March, 2015: Four high school students were hospitalized after eating brownies laced with marijuana hash oil. One student was actually found unresponsive in a school bathroom after eating a marijuana-laced brownie.
  2. February, 2015: A 20-month-old Canadian toddler overdosed after eating a marijuana-laced cookie authorities say his father baked. The child survived, but suffered seizures and had to be admitted to a hospital.
  3. December, 2014: A high school teacher in Maryland was hospitalized after a student gave her a brownie containing marijuana.
  4. December, 2014: Two middle school students in Oklahoma were rushed to the hospital after one of them reportedly passed out following marijuana-use at school.
  5. November, 2014: A Connecticut teen was taken to the hospital from school after she started having difficulty breathing following ingestion of a marijuana-laced gummy bear.
  6. June, 2014: According to The Aspen Times, a seven-year-old girl was taken to the hospital after eating marijuana-laced candy her mother brought home from work at an area hotel. The candy was left by a hotel guest–presumably as a tip.
  7. December, 2013: A two-year-old in Colorado overdosed and was hospitalized after eating a cookie laced with marijuana.News outlet indicate the girl found the cookie in the yard of an apartment complex.

You can read more about this latest incident here.

Photo Credit: “Cannabis Plant” by Cannabis Training University – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.