Home Emergency Medicine ED Visits in Colorado More Frequent for Inhaled Versus Edible Cannabis

ED Visits in Colorado More Frequent for Inhaled Versus Edible Cannabis

Visits for edible cannabis more likely to be for acute psychiatric symptoms, intoxication

TUESDAY, March 26, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Emergency department visits in Colorado attributable to inhaled cannabis are more frequent than those attributable to edible cannabis, according to a study published online March 26 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Andrew A. Monte, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora, and colleagues conducted a chart review of emergency department visits to describe and compare adult emergency department visits related to edible and inhaled cannabis exposure from January 2012 through December 2016. Data were included for 9,973 visits with an International Classification of Diseases, Ninth or 10th Revision, Clinical Modification code for cannabis use.

The researchers found that 25.7 percent of the visits were at least partially due to cannabis, and 9.3 percent of those visits were related to edible cannabis. Inhaled cannabis-related visits were more likely to be for cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (18.0 versus 8.4 percent); edible cannabis-related visits were more likely to be for acute psychiatric symptoms (18.0 versus 10.9 percent), intoxication (48 versus 28 percent), and cardiovascular symptoms (8.0 versus 3.1 percent). Between 2014 and 2016, edible products accounted for 10.7 percent of cannabis-attributable visits; during that period, they represented only 0.32 percent of total cannabis sales in Colorado.

“We must recognize that the full range of potential adverse health consequences from cannabis consumption are not fully understood,” write the authors of an accompanying editorial.

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