Dogs like marijuana more than cats.
I meant to write about this topic yesterday, but unfortunately life seemed to get in the way of my blogging pursuits again and there just wasn’t enough time. I have to confess, much to the outrage of animal lovers that read this blog, that I have blown marijuana smoke at my pets before. I’m not one of those people that force my pets to inhale my marijuana smoke. But if they come around when I am smoking marijuana, I kind of assume that they want in on the session. My cat will usually run away before the smoke hits her, but sometimes she just sits in the marijuana smoke and looks quite content.
All of my marijuana consuming friends and family ‘share’ their marijuana smoke with their pets. Some of them are a little forceful with it, which I don’t agree with. However, I don’t personally see anything wrong with second hand marijuana smoke if my pets come around for it, and it’s not in excess. Feel free to disagree with me in the comments section, because like always, I’d rather be proven wrong and facilitate discussion than to be right and never hear anything from anyone (that’s what blogging is about, isn’t it?).
There have been quite a few articles written lately about this topic. The first one that I saw was written by Dale Rodebaugh, for the Durango Herald. Here are some excerpts from the article, coming straight from the veterinarians:
Some veterinarians in Durango have seen a spike in the number of dogs poisoned by marijuana since the proliferation of medical marijuana dispensaries made the drug more accessible.
“We used to see maybe one case a year,” said Stacee Santi, a veterinarian at Riverview Animal Hospital. “Now we’re seeing a couple a month.”
Jennifer Schoedler, a veterinarian at Alpine Animal Hospital, has seen incidents of dogs getting into marijuana since she came to Durango in 1998.
“Dogs love the stuff,” Schoedler said. “I’ve seen them eat the buds, plants, joints and marijuana in food.”
Eric Barchas, a veterinarian in San Francisco, says on his website that he treats “stoned dogs” on a regular basis.
“Serious, long-term health consequences and fatality from marijuana intoxication are essentially unheard of,” Barchas writes on his site. “However, pets that are exposed to marijuana may display anxiety and are prone to ‘bad trips.’ They may lack the coordination to consume food and water.”
Vet Eric Barchas has on his website an entire entry dedicated to the subject, “Marijuana Intoxication in Cats and Dogs.”
Another article that I found was on the Huffington Post. My favorite excerpt from this article is “According to a 2002 peer-reviewed study on the subject, Dogs account for approximately 96% of all exposures to the drug, while cats–apparently more likely to just say no–comprise 3%, and other creatures round out the remaining 1%.” I suppose I could have just sited the study, but I’m a fan of the Huff, so I wanted to give them credit for bringing this to my attention!
I would like to point out to animal advocates (who are probably calling for my death at this point!) that “According to a study by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’s Animal Poison Control Center, only two deaths out of 250 pet pot cases have been reported — a cat and a horse, both of whom had other outstanding medical issues” (SF Weekly). I couldn’t imaging ‘sharing’ marijuana smoke with a horse…or perhaps it was just fed to the horse? True story – I once smoked marijuana with a high school friend that owned a spider monkey, and ‘shared’ my marijuana smoke with the monkey. He absolutely loved it! If you’re out there Andrew, that is still the craziest marijuana session I have ever had…