Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) took a moment Thursday afternoon to remind everyone how many people have overdosed on pot.
“Spoiler alert: it’s zero,” Blumenauer said at a press conference on Thursday. “The first time it happens, it’ll be news and people will know.”
Blumenauer and some of his colleagues, including Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (Calif.), called on Congress to allow the legalization of marijuana to go into effect in Washington, D.C. (You can read HuffPost’s Ryan J. Reilly report on the press conference here.)
Amid reports that a woman in the United Kingdom “died as a result of cannabis poisoning” earlier this year, HuffPost’s Matt Ferner wrote why it’s extremely unlikely do overdose on pot, according to science:
In the long history of humanity’s marijuana use, not a single person has ever died from a weed overdose. According to a 1988 ruling from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times the amount of THC in a joint in order to be at risk of dying.
A 2009 study from American Scientist on the relative toxicity of recreational drugs showed that using only 10 times the “effective” dose of alcohol could be fatal, whereas more than 1,000 times the effective dose of marijuana would have to be used to be possibly fatal.
Watch a video of Blumenauer’s reminder above.