Cannabis leaves. Representational image. Shifa Khan/ News18
New Delhi: A new study has revealed that pot-related emergency room visits for Californians have exploded by 1800 per cent since 2005.
The study, published January 9, 2023 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society , identified a 1,808% relative increase in the rate of cannabis-related trips to the emergency department among California adults ages 65 and older from 2005 to 2019.
Researchers used a trend analysis of data from the Department of Healthcare Access and Information and found that cannabis-related emergency department visits went from a total of 366 in 2005 to 12,167 in 2019.
A report in the New York Post said, “While cannabis use has been suggested to help alleviate chronic symptoms experienced by older adults, its potential adverse effects may lead to unintended consequences, including increased acute healthcare utilization related to its use.”
Does pot help relieve health-related symptoms?
An increasing number of older Americans have turned to cannabis to ease sleep problems, pain, and debilitating side effects from cancer treatments.
Many of them have experience in the past with cannabis and think they know how to use it and handle it, but oftentimes that’s not the case and they end up in the emergency department.
A medical expert said, “I do see a lot of older adults who are overly confident, saying they know how to handle it — yet as they have gotten older, their bodies are more sensitive, and the concentrations are very different from what they may have tried when they were younger.”
Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.