Beware the brownies: Study blames lax drug laws as marijuana-laced snacks sending children to hospital
Tom Spears, Postmedia News, May 30, 2013
OTTAWA — Relaxed marijuana laws in Colorado have had a side-effect no one saw coming: Children are getting into the wrong kind of brownies.
Also the wrong kind of cookies, candies and soft drinks. And they’re ending up in hospital.
A pediatrician has compared the number of young children treated at the Children’s Hospital Colorado emergency department for ingesting marijuana before and after the loosening of Colorado’s drug laws in 2009. Before 2009 there were none. Since then the hospital has seen 14.
Worse, doctors often don’t think of checking young children for drug consumption, so they order all kinds of tests and miss the real cause....click "Read More" below to continue....
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And Dr. George Wang says in his study the way to stop this trend is to enact state laws demanding childproof packaging on all marijuana food products.
Colorado allows its citizens to smoke, grow and sell marijuana.
The children who turned up at Denver’s Children’s Hospital Colorado are truly sick, with symptoms that included respiratory problems, extreme sleepiness, difficulty in walking and lethargy.
Commonly sold “medicated” products include brownies, granola bars, fruit bars, soft drink “elixirs,” chocolate cookies, almond cookies, gum, hard candies and truffles.
“Before the marijuana boom these kinds of edibles were not mass-produced and the amount of THC ingested was somewhat limited, but now we are seeing much higher strength marijuana,” Dr. Wang said in a written announcement of his study. THC is the active ingredient in marijuana.
If Aspirin comes in child-resistant packages, he argues, so should marijuana.
Washington recently adopted laws similar to Colorado’s. Dr. Wang says that “as more states move to legalize marijuana this problem is only going to increase. Now is the time to be proactive and intervene.”
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/05/u-s-drug-chiefs-want-laws-making-marijuana-legal-nullified-un-drug-agency-agrees/
Postmedia News
31.5.13
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Several things to be considered here; whaat was ages of the children ingesting the pot, how much did they consume, how did they get the edibles(irresponsible adults?)? "Herb" laced edibles are not for young children! They may have not known & thought they were eating normal sweets and got a high dose(pardon the pun). Thus the question, how did they get it? I agree knowledge & labeling is key for any product especially one with psychoactive properties.
ReplyDeleteBut these incidences are NOT a strong argument for banning of "pot" use, just banning of ignorance & misuse!