According to a research letter published online May 24 in JAMA Network Open, marijuana exposures are higher in states that have legalized cannabis.
The study revealed that exposures reported to poison control most commonly involve unprocessed plant materials
Higher rates of cannabis product exposures reported to U.S. poison control centers are seen in states where marijuana is legal, suggesting that exposures may be expected to increase with expanded legalization in more states, said the research letter.
Julia A. Dilley, Ph.D., from the Oregon Public Health Division in Portland, and colleagues analyzed data from the National Poison Data System on cannabis exposures reported to U.S. poison control centers from January 2017 through December 2019.
Trends and characteristics of exposures were evaluated for manufactured products and unprocessed plant materials.
The researchers identified 28,630 exposures, which most commonly involved plant materials (65.5 percent), followed by edibles (19.3 percent), concentrates (9.6 percent), vaporized liquids (3.8 percent), and other manufactured products (1.8 percent).
Alarmingly cases involving children (younger than 10 years) were more often manufactured product exposures (27.0 percent) versus plant-based exposures (8.4 percent).
More than half of calls to poison control centers came from a health care facility.
“Novice cannabis users are often advised to ‘start low, go slow’; this guidance may be equally applicable to regulating new retail cannabis markets and products,” the authors wrote in the paper.
