The number of children, teenagers, and young adults being rushed to hospital owing to cannabis-involved emergencies spiked throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new data published on July 13 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

While cannabis-involved emergency department visits had already risen among young people up to the age of 14 prior to 2019, mean weekly cannabis-involved ED visits among all young persons under 25 years old were higher during 2020, 2021, and 2022, the CDC found.

The CDC used National Syndromic Surveillance Program data to examine changes in emergency department visits during 2019–2022, analyzing a weekly average of nearly 1,700 emergency departments that report to the program, as well as state and local health departments.

The findings were published in the health body’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Specifically, the health agency found that approximately 539,106 cannabis-involved ED visits occurred among persons aged 25 or under between Dec. 30, 2018–Jan. 1, 2023.

During the pandemic, the average number of weekly cannabis-involved ED visits involving children under the age of 10 ranged from 30.4 per 10,000 visits to 71.5 per 10,000 visits. Prior to the pandemic, the average was between 18.7 and 23.2 visits.

Among children under 10, the mean weekly average of 71.5 per 10,000 visits occurred during the summer of 2022.

According to the CDC, such visits had initially begun to decline during the second half of the 2020–21 school year but then soared before reaching that summer 2022 peak and far exceeding pre-pandemic visit rates.

Among those aged 11–14, the mean number of weekly cannabis-involved ED visits during the pandemic ranged from 69.8 in 2020 to 209.3 in 2022. That’s compared to a range of 90.5 and 138.5 in 2019 and early 2020, before the pandemic.

For this age group, the CDC noted a spike in hospital visits during the second half of the 2021–22 school year although such visits also increased notably at the start of 2020.

Researchers also saw an increase in cannabis-involved ED visits among older teens and young adults aged 15 to 24. On average, the weekly number of hospital visits due to cannabis during the pandemic ranged from 2,275.8 (2020, weeks 12–23) to 2,813.2 (2021, weeks 12–23). That’s compared with a weekly average of 2,117.5 in the first 11 weeks of 2019 to 2,531.1 in the first 11 weeks of 2020.

According to the CDC, more than 90 percent of the cannabis-involved ED visits by those under the age of 25 involved those between 15–24 years. While the rates of cannabis-involved ED visits were elevated among this group from 2020 through summer 2021, they briefly returned to baseline during the first half of the school year in both 2021 and 2022, the CDC said.

It is unclear what prompted the increase in cannabis-involved emergency department visits, however a growing number of states—37 in total—have now legalized cannabis for medical use while 21 states allow recreational use of the drug.

Earlier this year, experts and public health advocates voiced their concerns about a rise in flavored cannabis products that appear to be marketed toward teenagers and young adults in states where recreational use of the drug has been legalized, such as New York.

Health professionals fear the flavored cannabis products, marketed under names such as “peach dream,” “mad mango,” and “cereal milk” could encourage teenagers and young adults to purchase them.

Other experts suggest growing use of the drug may be linked to pandemic-related stress as a coping mechanism.

“The pandemic took an overwhelming toll on the mental health of youth,” Doug Roehler, an epidemiologist at the CDC’s Injury Center, told CNN. “We know for some, substance use can be a coping mechanism to deal with stressful situations, especially among those already with a substance use disorder.”

“Cannabis-involved ED visits began increasing statistically significantly among all age groups except 15–24 years several years before the pandemic potentially as a result of expanding state-level policies legalizing cannabis use,” the CDC wrote in its recent report. “Improving clinicians’ awareness of rising cannabis-involved ED visits might aid in early diagnosis of cannabis intoxication among young persons.”

“Further, increasing adults’ knowledge regarding safe cannabis storage practices, strengthening youths’ coping and problem-solving skills through evidence-based prevention programs, and modifying cannabis packaging to decrease appeal to youths might help prevent intentional and unintentional cannabis use,” the CDC concluded.

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