Cannabis misinterpretation and misadventure in a coroner's court.
Authors
Tormey, William PatrickAffiliation
Chemical Pathology, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin 9, Ireland. billtomey@gmail.comIssue Date
2012-10MeSH
AdultCoronary Occlusion
Death, Sudden
Forensic Pathology
Humans
Male
Marijuana Smoking
Smoking
Tetrahydrocannabinol
Time Factors
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Cannabis misinterpretation and misadventure in a coroner's court. 2012, 52 (4):229-30 Med Sci LawJournal
Medicine, science, and the lawDOI
10.1258/msl.2011.011087PubMed ID
23155125Abstract
A 37-year-old, one-pack-per-day tobacco smoker collapsed and died at home. At autopsy, he had an occluded left anterior descending coronary artery. Δ(9)-Tetrahydrocannabinol-carboxylic acid was found in his urine but no cannabinoids were detected in his blood. Misadventure was the inquest verdict on the basis of the urinary cannabis, with acute myocardial infarction as the primary cause and cannabis as the secondary cause of death. Such a conclusion is a misinterpretation of the evidence when the time duration for cannabis as a trigger for myocardial infarction is at most two hours. The absence of cannabis in the blood likely places the time since inhalation at more than two hours. The role of tobacco smoking as a trigger was ignored. Cotinine, the biochemical marker of tobacco smoke, should be added to the standard toxicological screen in the guidelines on autopsy practice of the Royal College of Pathologists.Item Type
ArticleLanguage
enISSN
0025-8024ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1258/msl.2011.011087
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