Toxicology reports say only marijuana was found in the system of the man who was shot and killed by police in Miami after he attacked a homeless man and proceeded to eat his face.

An expert on toxicology testing said marijuana alone wasn’t likely to cause behavior as strange as Eugene’s.

“The problem today is that there is an almost an infinite number of chemical substances out there that can trigger unusual behavior,” said Dr. Bruce Goldberger, Professor and Director of Toxicology at the University of Florida.

Goldberger said the medical examiner’s office in Miami is known for doing thorough work and he’s confident they and the independent lab covered as much ground as possible. But it’s nearly impossible for toxicology testing to keep pace with new formulations of synthetic drugs.

In other words, there may be a new substance out there that causes this kind of extreme reaction in some users. A scary thought. Either that or this was just the moment a mentally ill man snapped.

But not all are ready to rule out marijuana as the cause of this incredible behavior.

“It could have been the strain of marijuana that increases the dopamine in the brain, such as sativa,” said Dr. Patricia Junquera, assistant professor at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

There are two strains of marijuana called sativa and indica. The sativa increases dopamine and gives you energy while decreasing pain threshold. Indica is a “sleepy high,” she explained.

“People don’t really know what the amount of either is in each little packet of marijuana,” she explained. “And we can’t differentiate between the two in the blood, much less in a dead person.”

Really? How much sativa do you have to smoke to chew someone’s face off? Is there a “face-eater” strain unlike any other strain in the world? The odds that this man had this reaction to marijuana, when no one else ever has, are off the charts.

Could the marijuana in his system have been laced with something that toxicology doesn’t know to test for yet? Absolutely. In fact, it would be a logical explanation. But to say a “sativa” could have caused this is quite ludicrous.

- Joe Klare