Levi Thamba Pongi (1994 – 2014)

Levi Thamba Pongi, a 19-year-old international Northwest College exchange student from the Republic of Congo, ate a marijuana cookie and became incoherent and paranoid.  He jumped off a 4th floor balcony of a hotel in a suburban area northwest of Denver.

On March 11, 2014 during spring break, Thamba and his friends went to Denver to try marijuana.  Colorado opened marijuana stores for recreational purposes in January, 2014.  Because 21 was the age limit for purchasing cannabis in Colorado, their 23-year-old friend went into the dispensary.  The dispensary clerk advised they “divide each cookie into six pieces and eat one piece at a time.”  Each cookie contained 65 mg of THC and was labeled 6.5 servings, as per Colorado’s marijuana regulations allowing 10 mg serving size for edibles.

Thamba and his friends each ate one-sixth of their own cookie.  After 30 minutes, he said he didn’t feel anything and so decided to eat an entire cookie.  Soon Thamba spoke erratically in French.  He was shaking, screaming, and throwing things around the hotel room.  He said to his friends, “This is a sign from God that this has happened, that I can’t control myself.”  His friends tried to stop him, but he ran out to the balcony.

Health Addiction Expert, Dr. Christian Thurstone, from Denver stated, “Right off the bat, 15% of people can have a psychotic reaction, and someone who has never used before is at an even greater risk.”  Unlike smoking marijuana which quickly goes to the brain, ingesting it takes longer to impact the body and to feel a high.  It can be very easy to over-consume a marijuana edible.

Thamba’s autopsy reported a marijuana concentration of 7.2 ng/mL active THC in his blood and Delta-9 Carboxy THC of 49 ng/mL.  The Denver coroner listed marijuana intoxication as a “significant contributing factor to his death,” caused by multiple injuries due to a fall from height.  The coroner’s office said Thamba didn’t have a history of mental health issues.

The spokeswoman for the Denver office of the medical examiner said, “He was fine; he was normal.  He was an easygoing kid, and then he ate this cookie and went over the balcony.  And this was not a kid who was suicidal.”