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DENVER (AP) – Five years after marijuana was legalized in Colorado, a new study shows that the harmful effects of marijuana are pushing more and more people into emergencies.
Inhaled marijuana caused the most serious problems at a large hospital in the Denver area. Foods and marijuana sweets, called foods, have also created problems. Patients presented to the emergency with symptoms such as repeated vomiting, fast heartbeat and psychotic episodes.
The study, published Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine, is based on stories of tourists in need of emergency care after swallowing too much marijuana gelatin.
"It was hard to know if they were anecdotes or a real phenomenon," said Dr. Andrew Monte, of the lead author, UCHealth Hospital of the University of Colorado.
Three deaths in Colorado related to edible products also prompted the study.
Marijuana cases in emergency rooms at Monte Hospital have tripled since the state became the first to authorize the sale of marijuana for recreational purposes in January 2014. Nearly a third of Patients were admitted to the hospital, showing severe symptoms, said Monte.
In 2012, the emergency department saw an average patient every two days suffering from a problem related to marijuana. In 2016, the number was two to three per day.
This is not enough to overwhelm the emergency service, Monte said, but it highlights an already overloaded system.
Most people can safely use marijuana, Monte said, but with its increased availability and higher THC levels, "we may be seeing more adverse drug reactions," he said. he declares.
THC is the part of marijuana that elevates people up.
The expanding cannabis industry is promoting the drug as a panacea while minimizing the dangers, said Dr. Erik Messamore, a psychiatrist at Northeast Ohio Medical University, who did not participate in the research. More than 30 states now allow marijuana for medical purposes at least. New Jersey plans to become the 11th state to approve the recreational pot. The US government believes that marijuana is illegal.
"You can not trust drug sellers to take the risk," said Messamore, calling for warning labels similar to those on tobacco products.
The badysis confirms that foods are a problem. At the state level, they accounted for less than 1% of total cannabis sales, as measured by THC content. Yet 11% of emergency visits were triggered by edible products.
Monte says that food products are too dangerous to be part of the leisure market. Slow to enter, their effects last too long for a good party drug, he said. They work best for those who want to use them as drugs.
Yet, as Denver resident Arlene Galchinsky learned, safe dosage information is lacking. She took a marijuana candy for pain on a prescription narcotic, becoming so disoriented that her husband was called paramedic. 79-year-old Galchinsky did not go to the emergency room, but the experience upset her.
"It was extremely scary," she says about this feeling. "When was it going to leave? It was so scary. "
In the state-funded study, 2,567 emergency visits to the Denver Hospital were caused by marijuana between 2012 and 2016. It's not just tourists ; 9 out of 10 were Colorado residents.
Seventeen percent of the visits were for uncontrolled vomiting. It was most often inhaled marijuana and not food products.
Twelve percent of the cases involved acute psychosis, in which people without a history of mental disorder lose touch with reality. This has been more often seen with edibles.
Inxication and heart problems were other common problems.
In an editorial, Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute Against Drug Abuse, called for more research on the pros and cons of marijuana. She and her co-author Ruben Baler wrote that it was "urgent" to strengthen surveillance of manufacturing and labeling, as marijuana use increases with legalization by the state.
Monte, a toxicology doctor, does not use marijuana. "I'm too busy," he says. "I can not spend time being high."
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