Date: Sun, 21 Apr 1996 08:38:22 -0500 From: "Carl E. Olsen" <[c--o--n] at [dsmnet.com]> Subject: DPFT Newsletter ========================================= Date: Sat, 20 Apr 1996 19:58:55 -0500 (CDT) From: Ralph Hodges <[ST 7 C 3] at [Jetson.UH.EDU]> Subject: DPFT Newsletter Drug Policy Forum News Newsletter of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas - Houston Division P.O. Box 22499, Houston, TX 77227-2499 Voice: 713-266-4329 Fax: 713-797-6759 April 19, 1996 Vol. 2, no. 3 "Serving the public by providing information and expert opinion about legal and illegal drugs and issues surrounding them." --------------------------------------------------------------- The Speaker for the April 22nd meeting is the Honorable Gerald Wetherington. Judge Wetherington is a visiting Professor of Law at the South Texas College of Law. He is a Senior Judge of the State of Florida and was formerly Chief Judge for ten (10) years of the Circuit Court of Dade County. Judge Wetherington organized and administered Dade County's Drug Courts and worked with the County's Drug Treatment Program. The title of his talk is: "The Impact of Substance Abuse on the Legal System." The meeting will be at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at 6901 Bertner at 7:30 p.m. There will be a short business meeting of the Forum at 7:00 p.m. Meeting: Mon., April 22 7:00 p.m. Business Meeting 7:30 p.m. Program UT Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS) Proximity: Fannin at Holcombe Blvd. Details: From this corner, go east on Holcombe two blocks to Bertner Ave. Turn right onto Bertner. GSBS is on the left, but no left turn is possible. Continue until the road curves sharply left. Then make a U-turn to pull into the gated entrance. Push the intercom button and say, "Drug Policy Forum." We'll lift the gate so you can park in front of GSBS. Go into the building on the right, and the meeting is in the first floor conference room. --------------------------------------------------------------- DPFT President Dr. Al Robison Comments on Overdose Symptoms of Various Drugs In a recent e-mail he sent in rebuttal to a erroneous editorial he had seen, DPFT President Dr. Al Robison commented on his research into the lethal dosages (LD50) associated with various common drugs: "[N]ot only has THC or a THC-containing product (marijuana, cannabis, hashish, etc.) never been known to kill a human, we were unable even to kill a rat or a mouse with it. But it's still the only drug I ever experimented with for which I couldn't determine an LD50, which is the dose that will kill 50% of a group of animals when administered to a large group. For each species there will be one LD50 when you give it intravenously, another one for subcutaneous injection, and so on for all the different routes of administration you can think of. All the other drugs I can think of, including especially all the other ones that humans like to take, will be lethal to experimental animals in relatively small doses. "Since it occurs to me that this info may not be well-known to non-pharmacologists, here's what the animals will die of when you give a lethal dose either intravenously or intraperitoneally: "Alcohol: The animal will eventually go to sleep, body temperature will fall, and the animal simply won't wake up. That's also the way humans who get into drinking contests die. "Caffeine: The animal will go into a series of focal and generalized convulsions and will die in a state of extreme rigor, with the extensor muscles in the legs contracted. "Nicotine: Respiratory failure, and in this case it's a particularly horrible kind of death, because the animal will be perfectly conscious but can't breathe because the diaphragm won't respond because the muscles will be paralyzed. "Heroin: Also respiratory failure but of a less horrible kind. In this case the animal quits breathing because the brain quits telling the diaphragm to do its thing and also quits responding to CO2. That's what happens to most animals including humans, but cats are an anomaly: they die of convulsions. "Cocaine and amphetamine: They also cause convulsions but different from the ones produced by caffeine. I used to call them popcorn convulsions because the mice who had received a lethal dose would all be very quiet and still. But then if I clapped my hand or otherwise made a sudden loud noise they would all start convulsing, creating the impression of popcorn being popped. "So that pretty well covers the favorite drugs people like to take for recreational purposes. Again, however, alone among the drugs I've had experience with, THC simply won't cause death. "Another group of drugs which it's difficult to cause death with by themselves are the benzodiazepines (librium, valium, etc.), but they will be quite lethal in animals which have previously received a non-lethal dose of a different kind of sedative, such as alcohol or a barbiturate. We tried to find drugs like this that would turn THC into a killer but we couldn't find any. "Thus to single out alcohol as being okay while making the other drugs illegal on the grounds that they're killers is quite irrational. According to this line of reasoning, marijuana should be legal whereas tea and coffee and all the other drugs humans like to take should not be." Fax your name and fax # to (713) 797-6759 for free fax subscription. ****************************************************************** * Carl E. Olsen * [c--o--n] at [dsmnet.com] * * Post Office Box 4091 * http://www.calyx.com/~olsen/ * * Des Moines, Iowa 50333 * [Carl E Olsen] at [commonlink.com] * * (515) 262-6957 voice & fax * [73043 414] at [compuserve.com] * ****************************************************************** Reporters and Researchers are welcome at the world's largest on-line library of drug policy material at: http://www.druglibrary.org/