Can marijuana smoke kill a mouse?

February 28, 2010 2:53 AM

Can marijuana smoke kill a mouse?

Can marijuana smoke kill a mouse after prolonged weeks of exposure? My friend's mouse died. Its cage was at the rear of her place where she and others smoke very frequently. So? What killed little Tom? I noticed his walk was staggered the day before he died. I felt he wasn't well in the days leading up to his death but thought he was just tired and sleeping. I know this sucks. I love animals and little Tom's death is bothering me.

posted by sjvilla79 to Pets & Animals (9 answers total)

According to this link, the LD50 (that is, the dose with is lethal to 50% of test subjects) of THC (the active component in marijuana) is over 400mg per kilo of body weight in mice for injection and oral administration. It appears to be a lot lower for intravenous injection (closer to 30mg/kg), but I would still guess that it's pretty much impossible for inhalation of significantly lower doses of THC.

Smoke, on the otherhand, I'm not entirely sure... but I am fairly certain that marijuana was not the cause of death here. It could be related if the owner smoked so much pot that they were completely unmotivated to care for their animal and feed it properly, but I find that to be pretty unlikely.

Calm down, small animals die for 'no reason' (ie: reasons we don't have time or money to invest in finding out at the vet) all the time. It was his time. Don't blame marijuana, that's just looking for an easy answer, based on preconceptions that marijuana is 'bad' or 'poisonous', if you ask me.
posted by sunshinesky at 3:26 AM on February 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

that is, the dose WHICH is lethal...
posted by sunshinesky at 3:28 AM on February 28, 2010

I think there'd have to be alot of smoke to kill a mouse, but I am not sure. What i do know is that mice don't live very long. Two years is a typical lifespan. I ended up with two pet mice at one time and they were each totally active until the day they (individually) died. So, I'd be likely to say that Tom died of natural causes, unless he was a really young mouse.
posted by cabingirl at 3:30 AM on February 28, 2010

I should have said, "died of old age." Even a young mouse can just die for no reason, like sunshinesky says.
posted by cabingirl at 3:32 AM on February 28, 2010

i know a bunny who lived in such a situation + other sensory overload for a year and it's still alive, although it seemed pretty permanently stunned.
posted by acidic at 4:16 AM on February 28, 2010

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, if you translated what we know of the LD50 of marijuana into terms applicable to humans, about 1500 pounds of cannabis would need to be smoked in 15 minutes in order to kill half of the people smoking it. So no, I don't think marijuana killed your friend's pet mouse, unless she was purifying and solubilizing THC and injecting Tom intravenously. Then she might have killed him.
posted by sickinthehead at 5:35 AM on February 28, 2010

No, marijuana smoke wouldn't kill a mouse. The only way you could kill a mouse with marijuana-- same as human-- is to drop a bale of it on the subject heavy enough to kill.
posted by Maias at 6:18 AM on February 28, 2010 [7 favorites]

The unfortunate reality for all who have loved pet mice is that most mice don't live very long even under the best of circumstances. I really doubt the marijuana smoke killed Tom. Still, smoking anything around pets is not too cool.
posted by applemeat at 6:29 AM on February 28, 2010

Does "rear of the place" mean outside? Then, I'll even doubt the "all smoke is dangerous" strain of argument holds much water. FWIW, we had two out of three pet mice die of old age, and your description sounds like the stroke symptoms they showed shortly before expiring.
posted by themel at 7:33 AM on February 28, 2010