“When 14-year-old Irma Perez of Belmont, California, took a single ecstasy pill one evening last April, she had no idea she would become one of the 26,000 people who die every year from drugs. Irma took ecstasy with two of her 14-year-old friends in her home. Soon after taking the tiny blue pill, Irma complained of feeling awful and said she felt like she was ‘going to die.’ Instead of seeking medical care, her friends called the 17-year-old dealer who supplied the pills and asked for advice.

The friends tried to get Irma to smoke marijuana, but when she couldn’t because she was vomiting and lapsing into a coma, they stuffed marijuana leaves into her mouth because, according to news sources, ‘they knew that drug is sometimes used to treat cancer patients.”

Irma Perez died from taking ecstasy, but compounding that tragedy was the deadly decision to use marijuana to ‘treat’ her instead of making what could have been a lifesaving call to 911. Irma was a victim of our society’s stunning misinformation about marijuana-a society that has come to believe that marijuana use is not only an individual’s free choice but also is good medicine, a cure-all for a variety of ills.”

Related link: Can marijuana use cause death?

Apr. 26, 2005