Drug screens can detect even the most novel of synthetic cannabinoids, but it is extremely rare that they do unless they are specifically looking for them.

Trapping ‘Spice’: a comprehensive, automated LC-ion trap-MS screening approach for the detect
ion of currently 38 synthetic cannabinoids in serum
http://www.gtfch.org/cms.../tk80_4/HuppertzEtAl.pdf

Yes, I was a bit unclear there. If you look at working methods from another German Institute of Legal Medicine, the current best practice is to look at 38 synthetic cannabinoids.


5F-PB-22 & 5-F-AKB48 aren't in the list. What I mean is: how comprehensive were the drug screens in the 2 cases? The paper doesn't tell.

Mass spectrometry will detect almost every drug, be it available to us 10,000 years ago or just today. But the issue with mass spec is not just to detect it (think of us here in the nexus trying to identify chemicals in mhrb or acacia species...yes we do), but also to identify it. To do the latter in a legally-accepted way, you need a reference sample. Yet, even without a reference sample you can speculate (sometimes with uncanny accuracy) what this weird, unnamed compound present in a person may be.

Via http://disinfo.com/2014/...s-cannabis-cause-death/:
“She suffered from depression and was on prescription drugs to try and deal with that although it would not appear she was taking them at the time of her death.”

"Cannabis as a cause of death is a diagnosis out of embarrassment"

Do the detailed results of the postmortem examination of the two men now document that they've died because of hash? "The individual diagnostic findings do not support this," says the Head of Legal Medicine at the Charité in Berlin, Michael Tsokos. He looked at the case study from Düsseldorf. "They show that the 23-year-old deceased had a grave cardiac precondition. Had he not coincidentally smoked cannabis the day before his death, a connection with his death would not have been made​​." What about the 28-year-old? "Once in a while we have cases in which the cause of death is unclear. To suspect cannabis as a cause is a diagnosis out of embarrassment to me." For Tsokos it is clear: "This is about coincidence, not causality."

"Cannabis als Todesursache ist eine Verlegenheitsdiagnose"

Belegen die ausführlichen Obduktionsergebnisse der beiden Männer nun, dass sie am Hasch starben? "Die einzelnen Befunde stützen das nicht", sagt der Leiter der Rechtsmedizin an der Berliner Charité, Michael Tsokos. Er hat sich die Fallstudie aus Düsseldorf angeschaut. "Aus ihnen geht hervor, dass der 23-jährige Verstorbene schwer am Herzen vorerkrankt war. Hätte er nicht zufällig am Tag vor seinem Tod Cannabis geraucht, wäre ein Zusammenhang mit seinem Tod gar nicht hergestellt worden." Was ist mit dem 28-Jährigen? "Fälle, in denen die Todesursache unklar ist, haben wir vereinzelt immer wieder. Cannabis als Ursache zu vermuten, ist für mich eine Verlegenheitsdiagnose." Für Tsokos ist klar: "Hier geht es um Koinzidenz und nicht um Kausalität."

http://www.zeit.de/wisse...-marihuana-rechtsmedizin

[..] Ultimately of these 15, only the two men remained, who now haunt the media as first alleged cannabis fatalities.

Many bystanding forensic researchers deem the assumption, however, indefensible. "Since the analyses showed nothing else, Hartung and his team zeroed in on cannabis" says Frank Mußhoff of the Forensic Toxicology Center Munich. "But this is no evidence, only an explanation at the most."

[..] Letztlich blieben von diesen 15 nur die zwei Männer, die nun als erste vermeintliche Cannabistote durch die Medien geistern.

Viele außenstehende Forensiker halten die These jedoch für unhaltbar. "Da nach den Analysen nichts anderes mehr auftauchte, haben sich Hartung und sein Team auf Cannabis verstiegen", sagt etwa Frank Mußhoff vom Forensisch Toxikoloischen Centrum München. "Das ist aber kein Beweis, höchstens eine Erklärung."

http://www.zeit.de/wisse...-marihuana-rechtsmedizin

1.8% of all cannabis‐related reports (35/1979) were cardiovascular complications, with patients being mostly men (85.7%) and of an average age of 34.3 years. There were 22 cardiac complications (20 acute coronary syndromes), 10 peripheral complications (lower limb or juvenile arteriopathies and Buerger‐like diseases), and 3 cerebral complications (acute cerebral angiopathy, transient cortical blindness, and spasm of cerebral artery). In 9 cases, the event led to patient death.

Δ9‐tetra‐Hydrocannabinol (THC) was detected in each. In 10 cases, THC was the only substance found for which the patient was positive. In 2 cases, THC and alcohol were found together but autopsy report dismissed alcohol in 1 of these cases, explaining this was most probably the result of post‐mortem gastric fermentation. In 1 case, THC was associated with alcohol, opiates, morphine, salicylates, and phenothiazine

there are reports in the literature of myocardial infarction in adolescents who had used the synthetic cannabinoid K2, the effects of which being reported as cannabis‐like after smoking.

You might have a chance of dying from cannabis if you trip over a big bag of it at the top of a set of stairs.

I was told that a lethal dose of cannabis is 5 kilos, from the 6th floor straight onto the head.

I was told that a lethal dose of cannabis is 5 kilos, from the 6th floor straight onto the head.