Warning issued to cannabis smokers about a shocking new side effect and what it does to the body.
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| Warning issued to cannabis smokers about a shocking new side effect and what it does to the body. |
Regular cannabis users are being warned about a side effect that might require a trip to the hospital.
As of 2023, around 17 per cent of Americans said they had smoked cannabis, with the drug now legal for recreational use in 24 states, including places like Ohio and Minnesota, which recently changed the law.
Since many states have made cannabis legal, scientists have been studying the effects on people who use it all the time.
According to health experts, 'chronic cannabis use' means using it regularly over many months or years, often defined as using it every day or nearly every day.
While getting "the munchies" (feeling very hungry) is a common effect of smoking cannabis, experts have noticed a big increase in hospital visits by users suffering from severe stomach upsets.
Emergency departments have treated patients with bad stomach pain and vomiting that lasts a long time. The one thing these patients all have in common is that they use cannabis regularly.
This condition is called Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome (CHS). This disorder causes very unpleasant symptoms like feeling sick (nausea). UW Medicine explains that this gut problem usually starts within 24 hours of the last time the person used cannabis and can carry on for days.
Moreover, chronic users can suffer these symptoms three or four times every year.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has now listed CHS on its International Classification of Diseases website. This means experts can keep a close eye on the number of cases and better understand how regular cannabis use affects the human body.
Beatriz Carlini, a research associate professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine, said: "It helps us count and monitor these cases. In studying addiction and other public health concerns, we have three sources of data: what clinicians tell us, what people in the communities tell us, and what health records tell us.
"A new code for cannabis hyperemesis syndrome will supply important hard evidence on cannabis-adverse events, which physicians tell us is a growing problem."
Although the WHO now recognises the condition, many doctors don't know about the syndrome. This means they might diagnose it wrongly, perhaps as food poisoning or a stomach bug.
Carlini continued: "A person often will have multiple [emergency department] visits until it is correctly recognized, costing thousands of dollars each time."
Research into this syndrome will carry on, as scientists try to work out exactly when cannabis users are at risk.
Emergency medicine specialist, Dr. Chris Buresh, said: "Some people say they’ve used cannabis without a problem for decades. Or they smoke pot because they think it treats their nausea.
"It seems like there’s a threshold when people can become vulnerable to this condition, and that threshold is different for everyone. Even using in small amounts can make these people start throwing up."
