Unexpected buzzkill
NEW AILMENT: ERs have been kept busy since pot was legalized
CALGARY — Cody Morin was heavily dehydrated and vomiting blood when he was taken to hospital in 2014.
“I was so dehydrated (from vomiting), they couldn’t stick an IV in my arm because my veins kept collapsing,” he recalls.
Hours before, Morin was at his fiancée’s Whitby, Ont., home after work, where he smoked a bowl of pot, a daily routine for the drywaller accustomed to smoking at least four joints a day.
Morin had lived through similar bouts, which lasted for six hours at times. This time, he got an answer to his mysterious ailment: cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome.
Scientists don’t know for sure what causes the condition, but believe avoiding marijuana is the only cure, said Dr. Andrew Monte, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado’s school of medicine who has studied the syndrome.
Morin initially balked at the diagnosis, having smoked for well over a decade, but watched his symptoms disappear after he stayed off marijuana. Now, he has discovered other pot smokers who suffered through similar torment.
Researchers haven’t identified how widespread the condition is across Canada, given that the syndrome is newly identified and not well understood, said Dr. John Foote, an emergency physician at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto who has written about cannabinoid hyperemesis.
Emergency rooms at two Colorado hospitals have seen a doubling in the rate of patients with cyclical vomiting syndromes like cannabinoid hyperemesis, said Monte, who believes the spike is largely because of the state’s recent legalization of marijuana, both for medical and recreational use. Hospitals across Colorado now see several new cases every week.
The growing prevalence of the debilitating condition was among several unexpected health effects of legalizing pot for medicinal and, later, recreational use, Monte said.
Monte said the most concerning unexpected health effects have involved children who consume marijuana, mostly in edible products, by accident. Pot is often sold in chocolates, candies and other goodies that look attractive to kids who know nothing of the intoxicating contents. In the five years before medicinal pot was legalized, Children’s Hospital Colora- do had not treated any youngsters for mistakenly ingesting marijuana. In the second year of medical legalization, there were 14 cases.
Monte said edible products should not be sold in retail pot shops, given the health risks. According to his research, edibles are responsible for most health care visits because of marijuana intoxication for patients of all ages. Concentrations of THC in these products can vary wildly while the effects can take hours to fully kick in. Users who don’t feel high shortly after eating a cookie may eat more, intensifying the effects when they peak.
Marijuana has medicinal properties and is often prescribed for a long list of ailments, such as chronic pain, nausea linked to cancer chemotherapy, insomnia and depressed mood associated with chronic diseases, and pain due to multiple sclerosis.
Overconsumption, however, can lead to increased anxiety, rapid heart rates, high blood pressure and vomiting, among other symptoms that land users in emergency departments.
In 2010, about 330 patients across Colorado were hospitalized with ailments where marijuana was believed to be a contributing factor, according to data published by the public health committee studying the effects of legalization. In the first six months of 2015, there were nearly 600 cases, according to the committee, which noted its calculations are imperfect because they rely on broad diagnostic codes.
A review of scientific literature on the health effects of marijuana use found substantial evidence that pot smoke contains many of the carcinogens that are in tobacco smoke, and heavy pot smoking is linked to bronchitis, including chronic cough and wheezing.
The literature review, conducted by the public health committee measuring the effects of legalization in Colorado, found adolescent and young adult users are at higher risk of developing psychotic symptoms or disorders in adulthood.
In Canada, public health officials have a better chance of reducing these and other harms by legalizing and regulating marijuana than by keeping it in the illicit market, said Dr. Mark Lysyshyn, medical health officer at Vancouver Coastal Health.
“We’ll know what’s in it and how it’s grown, what the strength is, and the product will be labelled. We’ll know who made it, who sold it,” Lysyshyn said, adding regulations should also usher in childproof packaging and other steps to keep pot away from children.
“If there are problematic products out there, then we’ll have them withdrawn off the market. People used to go blind from drinking moonshine; that doesn’t happen anymore. We have to get safe products out there that people can use safely.”
“I was so dehydrated (from vomiting) they couldn’t stick an IV in my arm because my veins kept collapsing.” — Cody Morin