Marijuana lobbyists promised states like Colorado and California that they could legalize marijuana and make lots of money.
What actually happened is that the illegal businesses, especially those controlled by cartels and triads, soared, while the ‘legal’ taxable businesses struggled to compete because of high taxes and high prices. Social problems caused by a boom in marijuana use soared, boosting the homeless crisis in Denver, ground zero for drug legalization, and major cities where pot had been legalized.
There’s also another side effect.
As legalization and commercialization of cannabis have spread across the United States, making marijuana edibles more readily available, the number of cannabis-related incidents reported to poison control centers has sharply increased: from about 930 cases in 2009 to more than 22,000 last year, data from America’s Poison Centers shows. Of those, more than 13,000 caused documented negative effects and were classified by the organization as nonlethal poisonings. These numbers are almost certainly an undercount, public health officials say, because hospitals are not required to report such cases. More than 75 percent of the poisonings last year involved children or teenagers.
In 2009, just 10 such cases were reported to poison centers; last year, there were more than 620 — a vast majority of them children or teens. More than 100 required ventilators. Dr. Robert Hendrickson, an emergency physician and professor at Oregon Health & Science University, said that in recent years he has treated more patients for cannabis poisoning, including a toddler who ended up in the I.C.U. after eating a cannabis cookie. “The child had a seizure and then was put on a ventilator” and had several more seizures, he said.
The toxicity of cannabis depends largely on the potency of the product and the size of the person. A high enough dose of T.H.C. can be so sedating that a person’s tongue blocks his windpipe, or it can trigger a seizure that requires intubation. But in general, an adult would have to consume a very large amount of cannabis to get that ill, doctors said: It might take hundreds or even thousands of milligrams of T.H.C. to cause severe side effects in a 150-pound adult — but far less for a child.
“It can be just devastating to watch a child in that state,” said Dr. Laurén Murphy, an emergency physician and medical toxicologist at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia.
The city’s poison control center said cases involving young children had become “almost a daily occurrence,” including some who had breathing problems or fell into a coma.
The foundational issue here is adult responsibility. It’s the responsibility of adults to protect children and to protect society. The last 70 years is what happens when adults stop behaving like adults, stop acting responsibly and open up the gates to every self-indulgence. Civilized societies require self-discipline. Without it, we have what we have now.
