President Biden has ordered the USS Ronald Reagan out of the Pacific theater and into the Indian Ocean to support the Afghanistan withdrawal. For the next four months, there will not be an aircraft carrier battlegroup in the Pacific.
Medical News
Facts, not propaganda
A comment on this morning’s post will make a good post for today.
Cannabis has no LD50 (no lethal overdose)
ANY substance has an LD50 dose: Aspirin, Tylenol, salt, sugar, Nicotine, even water. Contrary to what stoners would have you believe, there is a way to overdose on marijuana. The people who advocate for weed are either making money from it, getting high from it, or are just plain uninformed on the subject, and will claim that it is harmless. While marijuana is safer than most other recreational drugs, there is still a risk there.
Before we begin, in the interest of full disclosure: I feel that the war on drugs does more harm than good, and I think that marijuana should be legal. I also think that people who smoke weed now are mostly inconsiderate assholes who force those of us who choose NOT to use marijuana to put up with that horrible smell AND their juvenile antics.
Let’s begin with a point that is almost never talked about: smoking marijuana carries all of the risks of smoking: lung cancer, emphysema, etc. The lungs aren’t helped by deliberately inhaling large quantities of smoke. This makes smoking marijuana more dangerous than ingesting it.
How about the reason why people smoke: the THC?
Years ago, I was the first paramedic to treat a patient who had overdosed on what the patient referred to as “legal weed,” which later turned out to contain a synthetic form of THC called “Spice,” which is 40 times more potent than natural THC. It caused me to do a lot of research on marijuana and the possibility of overdose.
Let’s start with a discussion of the lethal dose for various common substances.
Benno Hartung et al. (2014) report that the lethal half dose (LD50) for THC in humans is estimated to be around 30 mg/kg. This means that approximately 2 grams (.07 ounces) of pure THC has a 50% chance of killing a 150 pound man. This is the amount of THC found in 10 grams (.35 ounces) of high grade weed with 20% THC content. Moreover, the DEA reports that concentrated THC derivatives known variously as “wax,” “dabs,” or “butane hash oil” consisting of up to 80% THC are now available on the streets; one tenth of an ounce of these would contain a lethal half dose of 2 grams of THC. Robert Gable (2004) also reports that the lethal half dose of marijuana is about 15 grams or one half ounce; however, he does not specify the THC percentage of the marijuana.
The reason why marijuana gets this reputation for being impossible to OD on is the relationship between the amount of THC it takes reach intoxication, versus the amount it takes for a fatal dose.
The issue here is not so much the total lethal dose, but how close you must be to the lethal dose in order to get the effect you are looking for. The largest cluster of substances has a lethal dose that is 10 to 20 times the effective dose: These include cocaine, MDMA (often called “ecstasy”) and alcohol. A less toxic group of substances, requiring 20 to 80 times the effective dose to cause death, include Rohypnol (flunitrazepam or “roofies”) and mescaline (peyote cactus). The least physiologically toxic substances, those requiring 100 to 1,000 times the effective dose to cause death, include psilocybin mushrooms and marijuana, when ingested. This makes marijuana safer than alcohol, MDMA, and other drugs, but it is not proper to say that there is NO risk.
I’ve found no published cases in the that document deaths from smoked marijuana, so the actual lethal dose is a mystery. Smoking marijuana is less risky than eating it from an overdose perspective because not all of the marijuana smoked is absorbed.
So now you know.
However, whenever I have posted about weed in the past, I always get tons of uninformed pro weed stoners coming by to tell me how wrong I am. I am not interested in that debate, so comments on this post and the earlier one will be closed. It just isn’t something that I want to debate, nor do i want this blog to become a blog about the risks and benefits of marijuana.
Medical News
Laugh of the year
This news story is right in line with what happened in my family. I got a panicked phone call from my brother. It seems that his son, who still lives with his parents, has a medical marijuana card. He heard his mother say that she was stressed out, so he decided to use some of his weed to make her some brownies.
She ate five of them before her son told her to slow down and confessed to what was in them.
She began freaking out.
So now my brother is calling because she is worried that she is going to overdose. I explained to him that the best thing that they can do is wait for it to wear off. He asked if they should go to the hospital and I advised them that there is nothing they can do for her at the hospital.
They decided to go anyway. Soooo, after a $1,000 copay and 6 hours in the emergency room, she was again sober. They didn’t do a thing for her apart from letting her sit in the waiting room while the effects wore off.
I got a good laugh out of it.
COVID
Figures don’t lie
but liars figure, as the old adage goes. It seems that the number of COVID cases is WAY down. Why is that? The vaccine? Nope. The cycle threshold.
Just before the election, the Ct was 40.
An hour after the inauguration, the CDC changed the Ct to 30, which reduced the number of positive test results by 68%.
Then on May 4 it was reduced for any test of a vaccinated individual to 28. This will mean that positives will be lower for anyone vaccinated. Along with that, asymptomatic or mild infections will no longer be recorded as “COVID cases.”
One year ago, nearly to the day, I proposed that COVID was being used to influence the election. I also predicted that COVID would disappear right after the inauguration. I almost nailed it.
On a side note, my hospital has four COVID patients being cared for by a single nurse. The “COVID hall” has 28 rooms with a possible capacity of 56 patients at double occupancy. There are FOUR patients in there.
Me
More on my issue
This is more on my issue with the job. I am writing all of this down because it will help me think this through. It also makes for a great post.
This supervisory position where I am working was created a year ago after some patient safety incidents, one of which ultimately resulted in the death of a patient. There was a big management shakeup because of it. This resulted in the old department head for my department getting replaced with the one that is my current boss.
The new boss decided that this unit needed more direct supervision. That is why the supervisors were hired- all within the last year. I was the last of the four who were hired. All of the other three have since moved on. What does THAT tell you about the work culture of this hospital? I don’t know- no one is talking, but the turnover tells me a lot. There is a HUGE morale problem in the place. Keep in mind that my unit is currently at half staffing. **
After I was hired, my boss told me that if we didn’t change how we were doing business, it was likely that state regulators were going to shut us down. It was crazy. This unit had been operating without written policies or procedures for over a decade. That is right in my wheelhouse- one of my Bachelor’s degrees is in EMS systems, and another one is in Public Safety and Health Management. (The other two are in Fire Science and Emergency Medicine)
So I spent my first two weeks there learning how this place did business. Then I wrote an entire policy manual over the next two weeks and submitted it to administration for approval- keeping best practices, and discarding ones that were inefficient or dangerous. Then I went out and took the boards to become nationally certified for this particular job, passed them, and turned my new certs into the hospital. None of that was a part of my job description. I did it because it needed to be done.
The people at HR told me that none of that matters. THAT is what upsets me. The job seems like a good opportunity, because it is badly in need of leadership. However, this issue with the pay and with HR seems like the place may not be salvageable.
The CFO was walked out by security on Friday. It may be that this was not the opportunity it seemed to be when I took the job.
Anyway, I wait and see what the application to the other hospital looks like.
Me
Conundrum
Three months ago, I was hired as one of four shift supervisors for a unit in a local hospital: two on days, two on nights. I was to be one of the daytime supervisors. The unit is budgeted for 14 employees. They had 11 at the time I was hired.
When they made the offer, I was not entirely satisfied with the pay offered. I asked them if there was room for negotiation, and HR told me no. I told them that I would have to contact them in a day or two. I talked it over with my wife, and we took the offered pay.
After I was hired, one of the night supervisors had to resign because his wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Two of the others transferred to other departments within two months of me being hired. I am the only supervisor left. On top of that, two employees retired and three resigned in the past month. We are operating by using overtime employees from other units, and by hiring temporary travel nurses.
As a result, I have been working 12 hours a day, six days a week. It’s been tough. I am exhausted.
Yesterday they hired another day shift supervisor, and I begin training him in two weeks. We will be splitting the day schedule: three days one week, four the next. The problem I have?
I got his new hire packet, and I am livid. He is making ten percent more than I am, and he doesn’t have as many certifications or as much experience as I do. He is ten years younger than I am. I went to my boss (the department director), who told me that pay is decided by HR, and suggested I talk to them. So I did.
They refuse to talk to me about the other employee, his experience, or his pay. I get that. They also said that my certifications are not pertinent to pay, because they aren’t required for the job.
I like the job, and I was happy with the conditions, and satisfied with the pay. Until I saw his, and realized that I am training an employee less qualified and making more money.
I just saw another job at another nearby hospital. I am more than qualified for that, and they are offering a four-figure signing bonus. The difference is that I don’t think it will be as satisfying or challenging. I applied. If I am offered the job (which I probably will be), and the pay is higher (I don’t know) I will use it as a bargaining chip where I am. If that doesn’t get me what I want, I might just walk.
I don’t know yet. Stay where I like the job, but am not respected and not making as much as I could? Or a less fulfilling job that is more lucrative?
I guess that will depend on how this plays out.
Anti American left
Kavanaugh hit piece
Slate takes a few minutes to attack Brett Kavanaugh. Typical liberal hit piece.
Antigun
Press supports weapon sales
The quote of the day comes from Rolling Stone magazine:
“When safety is on the line, you want the absolute best product in your hand”
Of course, they aren’t talking about guns. The funny part is that some of their advice can get their readers tossed in jail. One of their quotes:
A stun gun, Angorn explains, is an easy — and legal — way to carry protection without having to carry an actual weapon.
So a Taser isn’t a weapon? This would reinforce the belief of some people that using a Taser on someone isn’t really that big of a deal.
Their “weapons expert” is an idiot. Some states, like Florida define a stun gun thusly:
“Electric weapon or device” means any device which, through the application or use of electrical current, is designed, redesigned, used, or intended to be used for offensive or defensive purposes, the destruction of life, or the infliction of injury.
“Dart-firing stun gun” means any device having one or more darts that are capable of delivering an electrical current.
This becomes a problem when you look at the laws concerning the carrying of electric weapons:
(b) A person who willfully and knowingly possesses any electric weapon or device, destructive device, or other weapon as defined in s. 790.001(13), including a razor blade or box cutter, except as authorized in support of school-sanctioned activities, in violation of this subsection commits a felony of the third degree
I am assuming that the readers of Rolling Stone are not any more familiar with the maze of laws concerning the carrying of weapons than are the people who advise and write articles for them.
Antigun
Privately owned fighter jets
Watch the first F-16 fighter jets to be owned by American citizens, remember that an American billionaire is building and launching missiles, then tell me how dangerous is it that private citizens own machine guns.
Or does the Democrat party want to tell us that they are the party that represents the little guy, while they ensure that only Billionaires get to own weapons?
Insanity
Destroying women’s sports
There are millions of dollars in scholarships to be won by athletes. Men who are not fast enough to win as men are identifying and competing as women. Biological women are being beaten by these men.
I’ve lost four women’s state championship titles, two all-New England awards, and numerous other spots on the podium to male runners. I was bumped to third place in the 55-meter dash in 2019, behind two male runners. With every loss, it gets harder and harder to try again.
That’s a devastating experience. It tells me that I’m not good enough; that my body isn’t good enough; and that no matter how hard I work, I am unlikely to succeed, because I’m a woman.
How can the Democrats claim to be feminists while they are busy destroying women’s sports? Soon, there will be no women’s sports. It will be men, and men who claim to be women that are winning everything. Women will once again be relegated to the kitchen.
How does THAT make the left pro-woman?