Marijuana emergency room visits climb in Denver hospital study

[Teh One Who Knocks]

The Associated Press




DENVER — Five years after Colorado first legalized marijuana, a study shows pot’s bad effects are sending more people to the emergency room.

Inhaled marijuana caused the most severe problems at one large Denver hospital.

Marijuana-infused foods and candies, called edibles, also led to trouble. Patients came to the ER with symptoms such as repeated vomiting, racing hearts and psychotic episodes.

The study, published Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine, stemmed from tales of tourists needing emergency care after gobbling too many marijuana gummies.

“It was hard to know if these were just anecdotes or if there was a true phenomenon,” said lead author Dr. Andrew Monte of University of Colorado Health Emergency Department in Denver.

Three deaths in Colorado tied to edible products also prompted the study.

Emergency room records from Monte’s hospital show a three-fold increase in marijuana cases since the state became the first to allow sales of recreational marijuana in January 2014.

Nearly a third of patients were admitted to the hospital, evidence of severe symptoms, Monte said.

In 2012, the ER saw an average of one patient every other day with a marijuana-caused problem. By 2016, the count was two to three per day.

That’s not enough to swamp the emergency department, Monte said, but it stresses an already burdened system.

Most people can use marijuana safely, Monte said, but with its increased availability and higher THC concentrations, “we may be seeing more adverse drug reactions,” he said.

THC is the part of marijuana that gets people high.

A growing cannabis industry promotes the drug as a cure-all while downplaying dangers, said Dr. Erik Messamore, a psychiatrist at Northeast Ohio Medical University who wasn’t involved in the research.

More than 30 states now allow marijuana for at least medical use. New Jersey is debating becoming the 11th state to approve recreational pot. The U.S. government considers marijuana illegal.

“You can’t trust the people who sell the drugs to be upfront with the risk,” Messamore said, calling for warning labels similar to those on tobacco products.

The analysis confirmed edibles are trouble. Statewide, they made up less than 1 percent of total cannabis sales, measured by THC content.

Yet 11 percent of ER visits were triggered by edibles.

Monte said edibles are too dangerous to be part of the recreational marketplace.

Slow to kick in, their effects last too long for a good party drug, he said. They work better for those who want to use them as medicine.

Yet information on safe dosing is lacking, as Denver resident Arlene Galchinsky learned.

She took a marijuana gummy for pain on top of a prescription narcotic, becoming so disoriented her husband called paramedics.

Galchinsky, 79, didn’t go to the ER, but the experience shook her up.

“It was extremely scary,” she said of the feeling. “When was this going to go away? It was so frightening.”

In the state-funded study , there were 2,567 emergency visits at the Denver hospital caused by marijuana from 2012 to 2016. It’s not just tourists; nine out of 10 cases were Colorado residents.

Seventeen percent of the visits were for uncontrolled bouts of vomiting. It was most often from inhaled marijuana, not edibles.

Twelve percent of the cases were for acute psychosis, where people without a history of mental disorders lose touch with reality. That was more frequently seen with edibles.

Intoxication and heart problems were other common complaints.

In an editorial, Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, called for more research on the benefits and harms of marijuana.

She and co-author Ruben Baler wrote there is an “urgent need” for greater oversight of manufacturing and labeling as marijuana use increases with state legalization.

Monte, an ER doctor who specializes in toxicology, doesn’t use marijuana.

“I’m too busy,” he said. “I can’t spend time being high.”

[Muddy]

Why is that girl smoking weed under a bridge?

[Hal-9000]

Why is that girl smoking weed under a bridge?

Cuz the needle addicts were out for the day.

[Hal-9000]

Edibles are the culprit here. Smoking rarely if ever causes vomiting, racing heartbeats etc.

It's really no different than booze. Too much is too much. You can choose to get a little high or a little drunk, or you can assault your body with the drugs/booze until you can't walk or function.

[Godfather]

In the state-funded study , there were 2,567 emergency visits at the Denver hospital caused by marijuana from 2012 to 2016. It’s not just tourists; nine out of 10 cases were Colorado residents.

I was curious how this compares to alcohol. I found this (talks more about the mental health side but still includes nice stats on ER visits in Colorado).

To summarize. 'There were 102,506 (36.0%) ED visits with primary diagnosis of alcohol-related disorders' and '3,358 (0.1%) had a cannabis-associated code in the primary diagnosis.'

Can you imagine if alcohol was just recently legalized instead of weed, how we would all react to the impacts on health, crime, addiction, and death associated to booze?!? It would be a public outcry on a massive scale if drinking wasn't so deeply ingrained in our society going back thousands of years. Is weed a drug that everyone is going to use responsibly and safely? Hell no, it's a real concern. But it's also worth putting it into perspective against alcohol if we're going to tolerate any substances that alter our mind and body strictly for pleasure.

I'd like to see one hard, scary stats where booze doesn't dwarf marijuana in terms of negative cost to health and society in places where it's legal.

[Hal-9000]

I was curious how this compares to alcohol. I found this (talks more about the mental health side but still includes nice stats on ER visits in Colorado).

To summarize. 'There were 102,506 (36.0%) ED visits with primary diagnosis of alcohol-related disorders' and '3,358 (0.1%) had a cannabis-associated code in the primary diagnosis.'

Can you imagine if alcohol was just recently legalized instead of weed, how we would all react to the impacts on health, crime, addiction, and death associated to booze?!? It would be a public outcry on a massive scale if drinking wasn't so deeply ingrained in our society going back thousands of years. Is weed a drug that everyone is going to use responsibly and safely? Hell no, it's a real concern. But it's also worth putting it into perspective against alcohol if we're going to tolerate any substances that alter our mind and body strictly for pleasure.

I'd like to see one hard, scary stats where booze doesn't dwarf marijuana in terms of negative cost to health and society in places where it's legal.

As a thorough user of both, by far marijuana has the lesser of detrimental physical effects.


But...if you dig into those Denver ER stats a little deeper, you'll find a microscopic percentage of the pot users are smokers.

You know what happens with edibles. The person eats a little, expects an immediate effect and nothing happens so they eat more. Since retail edibles are a relatively new thing, the public has no idea how many of those little gummy bears to eat and that's where the problem starts.

Or maybe better put, back in the day we took a 1/4 ounce of black hash and baked it into a Snack n Cake. You ate one or two large pieces and 90 minutes later you had the yardstick telling you it was too much or too little. Because your friend's face kept doing that melting thing and your legs felt like 100 pound cement sacks when you tried to walk

Coupled with the growing millennial disease of already being too anxious and nervous during social situations WITHOUT taking drugs, it's a recipe for disaster eating high powered items with THC.

[Godfather]

Funny story for you Hal.

My brother gave my wife and I edibles a couple years back. We hadn't had edibles since the college days of weed brownies, but neither of us have a problem with it, we're both professionals with our shit together, these came from a reputable dispensary where the dose is consistent... so we thought why not.

My brother said this edible is just a nice little body high. The gummy looked like a 2x4 lego brick and he told us just to cut it into 8 and have only 1 piece each. In his words, 'eat one piece on a Friday night, get some snacks, and watch a movie with the lights off, then have the best sleep.' Cool, back to undergrad days. Having gone to college I heeded his warning and took only his recommended dose of one piece. I've seen what happens when people say "I don't feel anything", eat triple and get sick - I'm not that dumb.

So we get the usual spread: chips, popcorn, candy, lots of water, etc. After 15-20 minutes we felt nothing.... at the 30 minute mark the movie got funnier and the dry mouth started to hit. Cool this is going to be a fun right? Around the 40 minutes I was having a little trouble focusing on the movie at all... and then realized I could barely move and was getting more fucked by the second. By the hour mark my wife was losing it She knew we'd goofed and taken way too much and needed reassurance that we weren't going to fall off the earth. I had to play it cool for her sake, but I felt like time had actually stopped. I've been too high before so I was just talking myself through it and telling her to just take a nap - but I could not shake this fucking high. Luckily she fell asleep (that's her super power I swear), but I was so absolutely goofed I just stared with my eyes unfocused right through the TV begging myself to come down from space for the next two hours before floating to bed.

I felt completely greyed out the next day and gave my brother a ton of shit for recommending that dosage Asshole goes "oh ya, on second through maybe just a quarter of a piece would be a good start'

So yes - never edibles. Those days are long past for me.

[Hal-9000]

Funny story for you Hal.

My brother gave my wife and I edibles a couple years back. We hadn't had edibles since the college days of weed brownies, but neither of us have a problem with it, we're both professionals with our shit together, these came from a reputable dispensary where the dose is consistent... so we thought why not.

My brother said this edible is just a nice little body high. The gummy looked like a 2x4 lego brick and he told us just to cut it into 8 and have only 1 piece each. In his words, 'eat one piece on a Friday night, get some snacks, and watch a movie with the lights off, then have the best sleep.' Cool, back to undergrad days. Having gone to college I heeded his warning and took only his recommended dose of one piece. I've seen what happens when people say "I don't feel anything", eat triple and get sick - I'm not that dumb.

So we get the usual spread: chips, popcorn, candy, lots of water, etc. After 15-20 minutes we felt nothing.... at the 30 minute mark the movie got funnier and the dry mouth started to hit. Cool this is going to be a fun right? Around the 40 minutes I was having a little trouble focusing on the movie at all... and then realized I could barely move and was getting more fucked by the second. By the hour mark my wife was losing it She knew we'd goofed and taken way too much and needed reassurance that we weren't going to fall off the earth. I had to play it cool for her sake, but I felt like time had actually stopped. I've been too high before so I was just talking myself through it and telling her to just take a nap - but I could not shake this fucking high. Luckily she fell asleep (that's her super power I swear), but I was so absolutely goofed I just stared with my eyes unfocused right through the TV begging myself to come down from space for the next two hours before floating to bed.

I felt completely greyed out the next day and gave my brother a ton of shit for recommending that dosage Asshole goes "oh ya, on second through maybe just a quarter of a piece would be a good start'

So yes - never edibles. Those days are long past for me.

I was reading about one of the edibles on a weed site. It was a gummy, shaped like a large butterfly. They list the dose in milligrams. So what I do is read the user reviews on things like that. One guy says - Cut the thing in half, don't eat it all. Another says - We quartered it and all us got ripped for hours. One more says - This thing lasted me two weeks. Finally only one person said - I have lots of experience with dope, I ate the whole thing at once with no problems.

So that's one person out of an handful of people who said and I translate - BE CAREFUL

Regarding your experience I can only say without insult that you and your wife were probably not daily users of pot in any form. That's what builds tolerance for edibles. So if you hadn't been smoking a couple of joints per night, then yes, your gummy edible experience was bound to be quite eventful

That's kind of what I was getting at with my old school baking your own edible flashback. Back then you could more easily gauge how much to put in and eat because you were familiar with the components being used. Now, the sites say something like "56 milligrams of THC are in these five gummy bears or bricks or whatevers." You have no idea as a user what type of weed product went into making them. And a very important consideration newer people don't realize, is what type of medium is the THC contained in? Cookie dough? Gummy material? Mist or spray? That's very important because people digest materials differently. eg Some people don't fully digest gummy bear material = no full effect. Others may digest cookie dough completely and get really shitfaced with the same 56 milligrams of THC.

And ya, your brother knew

[Muddy]

Edibles. The bell that can not be un-rung.

[Hal-9000]

Edibles. The bell that can not be un-rung.

We made mushroom tea one afternoon without knowing how...and my friend's face turned green and his nose and chin elongated as he smiled. To the point of him looking like a goblin.

Never again..

[Hal-9000]

[Godfather]

We made mushroom tea one afternoon without knowing how...and my friend's face turned green and his nose and chin elongated as he smiled. To the point of him looking like a goblin.

Never again..

I'm not too adventurous so I leave the shrooms to my idiot friends. One time on a bachelor party, the boys all ate magic mushrooms per the groom's wishes, and we took them for a drive through a nearby national park to enjoy the trip in the forest. No joke, a couple of them fell out of the fucking van while we were driving they were so gooned. Thankfully we were driving extremely slow and nobody was hurt, just a lot of laughter. They seem like they're fun and people rave about them, but I'm too straight laced