Maximizing the Edible Experience Without Danger

Tourists are going to Colorado and typically want to experience the legal marijuana yet do not know much about it. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that tourists are ending up in the emergency room because of marijuana. There are public education campaigns that have made those who currently live in Colorado aware of the dangers of cannabis. Therefore, those who live there know how to take it easy, but visitors have not necessarily picked up on that.

Information put together by Dr. Howard S. Kim as well as others show a requirement for more “point-of-sale education for visitors regarding the safe and appropriate use of marijuana products.” Those who worked on this study state that the issue is a lack of awareness. Kim finished his residency in Colorado, where he worked with patients experiencing “classic signs of marijuana intoxication.”

Some of these signs involve anxiety, agitation, delusions, hallucinations and high heart rates. In an interview with NPR, Kim told the narrative of “some business travelers who were in Denver… and after the meeting ended, they decided to try some marijuana edibles. Then they ended up cutting to the ER.”

Research provided by the Colorado Hospital Association indicates growth in ER visits for excessive cannabis intake amid tourists from 78 for every 10,000 visits in 2012 to 163 for every 10,000 visits just two years later. Within that same interval, visits for Colorado’s population who became so inebriated that they hated it only occurred 70 times for every 10,000 visits in 2012, growing to 101 visits per 10,000 by 2014.

In the end, those who worked on the study decided that the declining rate of ER visitation amid the Colorado population was thanks to an awareness that sprang about when only residents were able to gain access to cannabis to the state’s medical program.