Don’t eat the brownies, kids: Tykes finding parents’ weed
As legalization increases, more children inadvertently ingesting or inhaling the drug
In the places where marijuana is legal, more and more children are being accidentally exposed to their parents’ drugs, a study finds.
The good news is that it is still rare for children to be exposed to marijuana when they are younger than 6 — but the trend is not exactly heading in the right direction.
Marijuana is legal now in more places than ever, and as a result, the number of reports that children have accidentally ingested or inhaled the drug is increasing.
The study, published in the journal Clinical Pediatrics, analyzed figures from the National Poison Data System, which is the clearinghouse for data from all of the poison control centres in the United States. The data in the study covered 2000-2013.
The incidents were self-reported, and the data set is probably subject to acertain amount of human error and under-reporting. But it gives a pretty comprehensive picture of the trends across the entire U.S.
Between 2000 and 2006, there was no significant change in the number of children who were reported to have been exposed to marijuana.
By the end of that period, medical marijuana was legal in 11 states.
But between 2006 and 2013, the rate of exposure increased by 147.5 per cent. Even in states where medical marijuana use isn’t legal, the study found that exposure rates increased, though not as much as in states where it was legal.
In places such as Colorado, which has legalized both medical and recreational marijuana, this is a problem for legalization advocates.
Everyone agrees that drugs — such as alcohol — should be kept away from kids, but it is unclear how to make edibles less likely to fall into the wrong hands.
Accidental ingestions, which account for a whopping 75 per cent of cases, are much more likely with the growing availability of marijuana edibles.
Most of these kids are probably ingesting marijuana accidentally — on account of their natural curiosity and the fact that the products themselves can taste like treats.
“The high percentage of ingestions may be related to the popularity of marijuana brownies, cookies and other foods,” study co-author Henry Spiller said in a statement.
(On June 11, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that medical marijuana patients can now legally consume marijuana — and not just smoke it — in tea or baked goods.)
Again, the U.S. numbers are relatively small compared to a host of other things that pose a danger to young children, such as pain medications, which are more likely to be in just about every household.