Page 15 - HOH

A28 SCIENCE
Tuesday 26 March 2019
Marijuana ER visits climb in Denver hospital study

By CARLA K. JOHNSON but the experience shook
AP Medical Writer her up. “It was extremely
Five years after Colorado scary,” she said of the feel-
first legalized marijuana, a ing. “When was this go-
new study shows pot’s bad ing to go away? It was so
effects are sending more frightening.”
people to the emergency In the state-funded study ,
room. there were 2,567 emergen-
Inhaled marijuana caused cy visits at the Denver hos-
the most severe problems pital caused by marijuana
at one large Denver area from 2012-2016. It’s not just
hospital. Marijuana-infused tourists; 9 out of 10 cases
foods and candies, called were Colorado residents.
edibles, also led to trouble. Seventeen percent of the
Patients came to the ER visits were for uncontrolled
with symptoms such as re- bouts of vomiting. It was
peated vomiting, racing most often from inhaled
hearts and psychotic epi- marijuana, not edibles.
sodes. The study, published Twelve percent of the cas-
Monday in Annals of Inter- es were for acute psycho-
nal Medicine, stemmed sis, where people without a
from tales of tourists need- This Monday, Jan. 28, 2019 file photo shows marijuana buds ready for harvest in Akron, Ohio. history of mental disorders
ing emergency care after Associated Press lose touch with reality. That
gobbling too many mari- In 2012, the ER saw an av- ing dangers, said Dr. Erik sales, measured by THC was more frequently seen
juana gummies. erage of one patient every Messamore, a psychiatrist content. Yet 11 percent of with edibles.
“It was hard to know if other day with a marijuana- at Northeast Ohio Medi- ER visits were triggered by Intoxication and heart
these were just anecdotes caused problem. By 2016, cal University who wasn’t edibles. problems were other com-
or if there was a true phe- the count was two to three involved in the research. Monte said edibles are too mon complaints.
nomenon,” said lead au- per day. More than 30 states now dangerous to be part of In an editorial, Dr. Nora
thor Dr. Andrew Monte of That’s not enough to allow marijuana for at least the recreational market- Volkow, director of the
UCHealth University of Col- swamp the emergency de- medical use. New Jersey place. Slow to kick in, their National Institute on Drug
orado Hospital. partment, Monte said, but is debating becoming the effects last too long for a Abuse, called for more re-
Three deaths in Colorado it stresses an already bur- 11th state to approve rec- good party drug, he said. search on the benefits and
tied to edible products also dened system. reational pot. The U.S. gov- They work better for those harms of marijuana. She
prompted the study. Most people can use mari- ernment considers marijua- who want to use them as and co-author Ruben Baler
Emergency room records juana safely, Monte said, na illegal. medicine. wrote there is an “urgent
from Monte’s hospital show but with its increased avail- “You can’t trust the people Yet information on safe need” for greater oversight
a three-fold increase in ability and higher THC con- who sell the drugs to be up- dosing is lacking, as Denver of manufacturing and la-
marijuana cases since the centrations, “we may be front with the risk,” Messa- resident Arlene Galchinsky beling as marijuana use in-
state became the first to seeing more adverse drug more said, calling for warn- learned. She took a mari- creases with state legaliza-
allow sales of recreational reactions,” he said. ing labels similar to those on juana gummy for pain on tion. Monte, an ER doctor
marijuana in January 2014. THC is the part of marijuana tobacco products. top of a prescription nar- who specializes in toxicol-
Nearly a third of patients that gets people high. The analysis confirmed edi- cotic, becoming so disori- ogy, doesn’t use marijua-
were admitted to the hos- A growing cannabis indus- bles are trouble. Statewide, ented her husband called na. “I’m too busy,” he said.
pital, evidence of severe try promotes the drug as they made up less than 1 paramedics. Galchinsky, “I can’t spend time being
symptoms, Monte said. a cure-all while downplay- percent of total cannabis 79, didn’t go to the ER, high.”q

Big U-turn: Key melting Greenland glacier is growing again

BY SETH BORENSTEIN around 2012 was retreat- is “arguably the most im-
AP Science Writer ing about 1.8 miles (3 kilo- portant Greenland gla-
WASHINGTON (AP) — A meters) and thinning near- cier because it discharges
major Greenland glacier ly 130 feet (almost 40 me- the most ice in the north-
that was one of the fast- ters) annually. But it started ern hemisphere. For all of
est shrinking ice and snow growing again at about Greenland, it is king.”
masses on Earth is growing the same rate in the past A natural cyclical cooling
again, a new NASA study two years, according to a of North Atlantic waters
finds. The Jakobshavn (YA- study in Monday’s Nature likely caused the glacier to
cob-shawv-en) glacier Geoscience . Study au- reverse course, said study
lead author Ala Khazen-
dar, a NASA glaciologist on
This 2016 photo provided by NASA shows patches of bare land the Oceans Melting Green-
at the Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland. land (OMG) project. Khaz-
Associated Press endar and colleagues say
thors and outside scientists and climate scientist Jason this coincides with a flip of
think this is temporary. Box. “The good news is that the North Atlantic Oscilla-
“That was kind of a sur- it’s a reminder that it’s not tion — a natural and tem-
prise. We kind of got used necessarily going that fast. porary cooling and warm-
to a runaway system,” said But it is going.” ing of parts of the ocean
Geological Survey of Den- Box, who wasn’t part of that is like a distant cousin
mark and Greenland ice the study, said Jakobshavn to El Nino in the Pacific. q