Be Careful What You Inhale

It was enough to make even the most devoted of pot smokers pause before toking up: the news that Mexican marijuana contaminated by a deadly herbicide is circulating widely in the U.S.

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) recently announced a plan to examine pot samples for evidence of paraquat, the carcinogenic defoliant sprayed on Mexican marijuana plants in a U.S. government-sponsored effort to kill the weed at its source.

The National Institute of Drug Abuse reported that 10 per cent of the Mexican marijuana it examined was contaminated. The defoliant, similar to those used in Vietnam, can cause death--or at the least, very unpleasant high.