Colorado doctors claim first marijuana overdose death

An 11-month-old Colorado boy is the first person ever to die of a marijuana overdose, according to doctors on his medical team who published their findings in a medical journal.

The boy died two years ago after being hospitalized for a seizure and having heart failure a few days later, the Ledger-Enquirer reported. It was later found that he had high levels of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in his system.

An investigation revealed the boy’s parents possessed marijuana and that he likely ingested it at his living quarters in a motel, the Ledger-Enquirer reported.

Marijuana depresses the central nervous system and has caused myocarditis — inflammation of the heart — in several other cases, but those patients, who were older, all recovered.

Myocarditis is more often fatal in children, and is usually caused by injections, fungi, or parasites, KUSA reported. 

Some doctors with knowledge of the case didn’t agree the boy died from a marijuana overdose, the Ledger-Enquirer reported.

“It’s too much as far as I’m concerned,” emergency medicine specialist Dr. Noah Kaufman told KUSA. “Because that is saying confidently that this is the first case. ‘We got one!’ And I still disagree with that.”

But the doctors who published the case were convinced marijuana was the culprit.

“We extensively ruled out almost every other cause that we can think of,” Dr. Christopher Hoyte, who worked on the case, said, KUSA reported. “Myself, our team, plus the primary team taking care of the patient, plus the coroner who did the post-mortem on the child. And we found no other reason why this young kid ended up having inflammation on his he

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