10 Things More Likely to Kill You Than Weed (But No One’s Banning Hot Dogs)

The weather is starting to warm up, and you know what that means–food and fun in the sun! However, beware of the dangers that lurk just below the surface. 

Unforeseen peril in everyday activities and items we all take for granted can lead to your death more than cannabis ever could. Let’s explore some fear-mongering in the opposite direction and examine some everyday things that have the potential to kill you more than weed!

You Could Die From Any of These Fun Activities, and More!

We all love summer–the warm weather makes everyone feel carefree and want to go out and do fun stuff. It can also make you just want to chillax at home and take it easy in the air conditioning. Whatever you decide to do, be aware that you might not ever see your loved ones again!

1,2,3 Strikes and You’re Dead At the Old Ball Game

Your buddy just scored front row seats right behind the dugout on the upper balcony for tonight’s baseball game. Things are going great until your favorite player hits a laser of a foul ball directly towards you. The potential heroics in your mind overtake any sense of self-preservation in that heightened moment, while the ball gets closer and closer. You don’t realize that you’re leaning over the railing just a little bit more than you should be, and take a pretty big fall onto the seats way below.

Yes, these types of deaths do happen, and according to a 2017 report, there were 6 fatalities caused by traumatic brain injury since 2009 at baseball games. Those numbers are in addition to the many skull, face, and head trauma injuries that are also listed in the report. 

Sleeping In A Hammock Is Good, Clean, Deadly Fun

Camping outdoors has its share of risks, and we aren’t talking about bears either. Let’s say you just set up camp. The tent is assembled correctly for once, and the camp chairs are set up to accompany a roaring fire later, after supper. You decide to take a nap in the new hammock you just bought, blissfully unaware of the notorious proclivity of hammocks to collapse, often causing a big fall or collision from a falling tree or support beam. 

Hammock-related deaths are no joke, and happen quite often–the most recent incident happened in Alabama while a college student was sleeping during a camping trip. You know what doesn’t happen quite often–actually never–cannabis related overdose deaths. 

Television Is A Multi-Purpose Tool of Death

 The elderly babysitter from the 1991 film, Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, said it best: “TV rots your brains!”. It turns out that TV not only rots your brain, but your heart and body too. A study back in 2015 found that 80% of American adults aged 50-71 watch 3.5 hours per day and are at a higher risk of developing cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s, liver disease, and influenza/pneumonia. The sedentary nature of being a couch potato easily lends itself to being less physically active and healthy.

Another thing about TV that could also pull you from the grips of its addiction is a staggering statistic from 2022. It turns out that at the time of the study from the Consumer Product Safety Commission several years ago, tip-over and crush fatalities from television sets made up 62% of all furniture and appliance-related deaths. Deaths attributed to cannabis O.D.s–zero.

Surely Napping Can’t Be Fatal, Right?

You’ve decided that the world outside your bedroom is just too dangerous, and you choose to hit the lights and shut the door. A relaxing nap pulls you in like floating on a comfy cloud, and you finally feel at peace. While it may feel great right now, if you keep it up, those cat naps will take up all of your nine lives. 

Another study from 2022, this time in a journal for the American Heart Association, found that routine daytime napping correlates with elevated blood pressure that can result in susceptibility to strokes. People who tend to take naps often suffer from poor sleep habits. This resulted in a 12% higher chance of high blood pressure and a 24% higher chance of experiencing a stroke versus those who don’t nap, according to the sample size.  

READ: Is Marijuana Safer Than Alcohol?

Food Is the Best, Until It Tries to Kill You

There are a lot of unhealthy foods out there to slowly kill you–entire markets full of them are everywhere. The addiction first starts with a Twinkie, then a cupcake–next thing you know, you’re freebasing cake frosting. However, whether you want to throw away your life is up to you, so here are some foods that can bring death more easily than anyone can ever overdose and die from smoking weed. 

Seafood Can Sometimes Be A Roll of the Dice

Summertime has arrived, so you and the family take a nice vacation down at the beach. Everybody is still buzzing from the delicious seafood dinner you just enjoyed; however, you aren’t feeling so hot–was it the mussels?

Food poisoning from marine toxins happens often and is a risk that flies under the radar. Toxins such as Saxitoxin aren’t from some exotic creature of the ocean–they’re commonly found in clams and mussels. Saxitoxin is known as an extremely bad form of shellfish poisoning–at best, you have an upset stomach, at worst, neurological disorders and respiratory failure that results in death.

One Fatal Hot Dog, Hold the Relish Please

Everybody wants to walk down the boardwalk by the ocean and get a snack, so you cave into peer pressure and grab a few hot dogs from a local dealer. The dogs go down good, however, it’s probably a safe bet that you and Joey Chestnut never read the University of Michigan study from 2021 that revealed that eating a hot dog costs you 36 minutes of your precious life. 

If that isn’t enough for you to swear off hot dogs cold turkey, then you should also be aware that hot dogs are a top choking hazard due to the way they can sometimes block airways. 

One Scoop of Chocolate, One Scoop of Vanilla, One Scoop of Death

You do a good job of skipping the hot dog and decide some ice cream shouldn’t be deadly, right? 

Wrong–fatal bacteria like Listeria monocytogenes often contaminate frozen dairy products like ice cream, causing outbreaks and recalls seemingly every year. Death from eating ice cream is so common that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates about 260 deaths every year from listeria infections. 

Everything the ATF & Federal Government Regulate

Cannabis is the most stigmatized substance around. Alcohol, tobacco, and firearms don’t even have nearly the same resistance against them as cannabis, despite being responsible for a massive number of deaths in society and being federally legal. 

Alcohol Is One of the Most Toxic Substances

Alcohol is ever present in society, and abuse is easy because of how accessible and acceptable it is everywhere. Television commercials and billboards depict everybody always having a great time with a few beers and spirits. However, what they don’t show you is that deaths from alcohol feature staggering numbers.

• The CDC reports that about 178,000 U.S. deaths each year can be attributed to the effects that alcohol has on the human body and health.
• A third of those alcohol-related deaths are related to binge drinking or alcohol poisoning, while there has never been a recorded case of any deaths from cannabis overdose.
• Alcohol took away 24 years of life on average from those who died from it, which totals almost 4 million years of life lost. 

Tobacco Is So Lethal, It Should Be Illegal

Tobacco contains nicotine, a highly addictive substance that kills over 490,000 Americans each year, according to the American Lung Association. An unfortunate side note to this astounding figure is that it’s the most preventable cause of death in the country–that’s just how addictive it is. 

Tobacco-related deaths and health issues cost the country more than $600 billion in related health care costs. Another crazy thing about tobacco is that it not only kills the person smoking it, but secondhand smoke is also responsible for over 19,000 U.S. fatalities annually. 

No Surprise Here, Firearms Kill A Lot of People Compared to Weed

It’s pretty obvious Americans revere guns–this is a country more or less forged from gunpowder. The enshrinement of the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution has led pro-gun advocates to proudly champion their right to bear arms. Meanwhile, on the other side of the gun debate is a very real public health crisis of gun violence. 

• Firearms are the main cause of death for children in the U.S.– a truly frightening statistic.
• The CDC reports 47,000 deaths in the U.S. as a result of gun-related injuries.
• Gun death rates in the U.S. are significantly higher than in most other developed nations.
• Number of fatalities from cannabis overdoses–still 0. 

Cannabis Isn’t Perfect, But It Still Shouldn’t Be So Stigmatized

There are a lot of things we encounter each day that can be lethal, but the fact still holds that cannabis has never caused one single overdose death. The addictive nature of cannabis is not quite the same as tobacco and alcohol; however, respiratory issues and conditions like cannabis use disorder are real. 

Is cannabis the devil that institutions like the federal government, traditional media, and most organized religions really make it out to be? Its potential efficacy in helping to treat issues like pain, anxiety, and depression for so many in need should already be enough to warrant “Nope” for an answer. So let’s save our fear-mongering for real threats like frankfurters and mint chocolate chip!