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 5. This is a remarkable statement First= the record on marijuana
 encompasses 5,000 years of human experience. Second, marijuana i_s now used
 daily by.enormous numbers of'p_ople throughout the wbrld. Estimates. suggest
 that from twenty million to fifty mi]l_on°#_er_cans routinely, a.]beit _llegally,
 smoke.ma;_ijuana without the benefit of direct medical supervision. Yet, despli%e
 this long history of use and the extraordinarily higi_ numbers, of social smokeffs,
 there are simply oo.credible medical reports to suggestothat consuming marijuana
 has caused a s_ngle death.
 6. By contrast aspir#n, a commonly "used, over-the-counter medicine,
 causes hundreds of deaths each year.
 7. Drugs use(_ in medicine are routinely given what is ca'fled an
 LD_50. The LD-50 rating indicates at what dosage fifty percent of test animals
 receiving a drug wilI die as a result of drug induced toxicity. A number of
 researchers have at%empted to determine marijuana's LDo-50 rating in test animals,
 without success.- Simply stated, researchers have been unable to give an#mals
 enough marijuana to induce death.
 8o At present it is estimated that marijua_a's LD-50 is around
 1:20,000 or l:40,OOOo In layman terms this means that _n order to induce
 death a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as much
 marijuana as is contained in one marijuana cigarette. NIDA-supplied marijuana
 cigarettes weigh approximately o9 grams. A smoker would theoretically have to
 consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within about fifteen mCnutes to induce
 a lethal response.
 9. In practical terms, marijuana cannot i_du(:e a lethal response as a
 result of drug-related toxicity.
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