Emergency Room doctors throughout the country have noticed a surge in young marijuana users having psychotic episodes and vomiting uncontrollably, due to the very high levels of THC.
Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, now known by doctors as ‘scromiting’, a mash-up of the words screaming and vomiting has become a more prevalent diagnosis at hospitals in Colorado, which first legalised weed for recreational purposes in 2012.
Just three years earlier, the ER at Parkview Medical Centre in Pueblo reported five scromiting cases, but by 2018, six years after marijuana was legalised, the ER surveyed 120 cases, an increase of 230 per cent in only nine years.
According to NBC News, reports of the syndrome have also increased in two different ERs in Colorado soon after weed became legal.
Researchers suggest that for those who begin smoking at a young age, scromiting is more widespread amongst daily marijuana users.
A 2017 study, for instance, discovered that 97 per cent of those who developed the condition reported using marijuana at least once a week.
It also revealed the median age of patients with Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS) who started smoking was 16, the median age of symptom onset was 24, but the condition is further becoming more prevalent as the marijuana industry increases the amount of THC, the main psychoactive ingredient, in its product.
Experts said marijuana consumed 20 years ago contained about 2 to 3 per cent THC, but the cannabis sold in markets like Colorado can have THC levels as high as 90 per cent.
The market is also being overwhelmed with concentrates, made with high levels of THC and other substances, and according to NBC, concentrates made up 43 per cent of Colorado’s $2 billion cannabis market in 2020, up from 32 per cent in 2019.
Consuming anything with more than 10 per cent, however, can raise the chances of a psychotic break, and according to a 2019 study, it also said that daily cannabis used was associated with increased odds of having a psychotic disorder.
The study said that the odds increase almost five times if the daily user is smoking high potency weed. Noting that if high potency weed were no longer available 12.2 per cent of psychiatric cases could be prevented across the 11 sites they studied, increasing to 33 per cent in London and 50 per cent in Amsterdam.
Dr G Sam Wang, an emergency room doctor and toxicologist at the Children’s Hospital in Denver told NBC News that evidence for how cannabis, particularly in larger concentrations, affects mental health and is becoming stronger, especially on how it relates to psychosis and schizophrenia-like symptoms.
But the problem here is that it appears that the legal strains are far more potent than the illegal ones, and they’re the reason more episodes are occurring now, and it seems that those who’ve scromited did so on legally bought stuff after smoking for years without incident.
But really folks, ‘scromiting’, why didn’t they say screaming and vomiting? It sounds more like a Hogwarts game, and I still believe that alcohol is much riskier, but then nobody should be doing drugs until they’re old enough to make an informed decision, and children should definitely not be permitted to smoke maryjane anyhow.
But now they’re saying that marijuana is bad for you because of this scromiting, but numerous people have smoked weed for decades and their brain function is just fine, and many have been in full-time employment, bought properties and paid their taxes, and I’m sure that lots of times people have vomited from alcohol, but weed, well I’m not sure about that! Perhaps from having the munchies and eating too much, but some people have been smoking weed for over 35 years and have never been sick, but what do they know?
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