Study claims Colorado kids increasingly getting sick from medical marijuana edibles

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A new study out this week claims that marijuana edible ingestion cases among kids has skyrocketed in recent years in Colorado, implying that such problems are just the tip of what is to come with legalization.
Does it reek of pot paranoia? Yes.


Officials at the Children’s Hospital Colorado say that the number of children brought in for ingesting marijuana has gone from zero reported cases between 2005 and the fall of 2009 (which is when dispensaries began to proliferate in the state), to fourteen cases between the fall of 2009 and 2011.In eight of the cases, the pot food was directly attributed to medical marijuana, they say.
We’re not saying that kids getting borderline-psychedelic on pot food is cool. That said, the study is complete crap. Mainly: the researchers admit that prior to 2009, they weren’t really looking for THC toxicity cases. Doctors historically haven’t been trained to look for those symptoms. So even if kids had come in after ingesting some pot food, the doctors prior to 2009 probably wouldn’t have known what it was. Instead, the report notes that doctors would look for dozens of other potential problems instead.
The researchers go on to say that the cases wouldn’t have been as severe if it had just been homemade pot food, and blamed the increase potency in medical foods and buds sold from dispensaries in particular for the hospitalizations. You know, because non-medical pot users don’t grow potent herb or bake strong brownies or anything like that.
And if that isn’t enough to point out the real goal of the study, the head researcher asserts that medical marijuana edibles companies are directly marketing to kids. “They’re sold as edible products and soft drinks that kids will eat or drink because they don’t know it’s any different,” the head researcher said of the study said, again trying to put the blame on medical dispensaries that he clearly thinks are selling products to non-cardholding minors.
Look, we’ll be honest and admit that edibles have become exponentially easier to obtain for adults in Colorado in recent years, be it medical or otherwise. But it’s not pot’s fault these kids are eating them and getting sick. It’s the parent’s fault. Mix any intoxicants with already bad parents and you’ll end up with what we’ve got here today.
The study itself points that out. Many of the parents didn’t know the kids had gotten into their pot in the first place. The study also says that a few kids found the pot at their grandparent’s house. The parents are lucky the kids didn’t get into anything poisonous instead.
And that’s the good news of this whole thing: pot won’t kill any of these kids. They may have a rough trip for a while, but they aren’t going to be overdosing.

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