In California, cannabis grown outdoors was for the first time identified as the trigger for a dangerous illness. A study that has attracted little attention so far shows that a woman became seriously ill from smoking contaminated cannabis. What really happened and how can consumers protect themselves?
As the Daily Mail reported back in January, a case study has proven that cannabis infected with a fungus was the cause of a fungal infection in a woman from California. The symptoms and the course of the illness of so-called valley fever are similar to those of meningitis.
However, this illness is not normally fatal to healthy people. It comes from the fungus coccidioides immitis, which enters the body from the dust of contaminated mouse droppings or contaminated food.
The British Medical Journal published an article, which so far has mainly been ignored, that reports on a 48-year old woman and cannabis patient who reportedly smoked up to six blunts per day (i.e. pure cannabis wrapped in a tobacco leaf).
After the appearance of…