DENVER — Colorado’s tourists aren’t just buying weed now that it’s legal — they’re ending up in emergency rooms at rates far higher than residents, according to a new study.
Doctors reviewed marijuana-related emergency-room admissions at a hospital near Denver International Airport during 2014, when the sale of recreational pot became legal. The results will be published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The physicians found that the rate of emergency-room visits possibly related to marijuana doubled among out-of-state residents in the first year of recreational pot sales. The rate went from 85 per 10,000 visits in 2013 to 168 per 10,000 visits in 2014.
Among Colorado residents, the rate of emergency-room visits possibly related to cannabis use did not change significantly between 2013 and 2014. Among Colorado resident emergency-room patients, 106 per 10,000 visits complained of marijuana-related ailments in 2013 and 112 per 10,000 visits complained of marijuana-related ailments in 2014.
The difference between tourists and residents played out statewide.
Doctors in the study compared the hospital rates to data from the Colorado Hospital Association. That showed the rate among out-of-state residents rose from 78 per 10,000 visits in 2012 to 112 per 10,000 visits in 2013 to 163 per 10,000 visits in 2014. Among Colorado residents, the rate of emergency-room visits possibly related to cannabis use increased from 61 to 70 to 86 to 101, respectively.
Tourists and Coloradans also had different complaints related to marijuana. Coloradans across the time period mostly complained of gastrointestinal problems, while the most common ailment by visitors was psychiatric, including aggressive behavior and hallucinations.
Men were two to three times more likely than women among both groups to complain of cannabis-related ailments in emergency rooms. Coloradans were slightly younger than out-of-state residents, with a median age of 34 for residents and a median age of 35.5 for visitors.
The doctors said the difference between tourists and residents caught them by surprise.
“We didn’t expect people from out of state to actually be coming to the emergency department mentioning this drug more often,” said Dr. Andrew Monte, a toxicologist and emergency-room physician at the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora.
The cases of both tourists and residents reporting feeling like they’d overdosed on pot were a “vast minority” of those showing up complaining of a cannabis-related ailment, Monte said. Instead, the patients usually reported that pot exacerbated an underlying medical condition, especially schizophrenia or psychosis.
The study included all cases where patients mentioned cannabis. Monte said the increase has two likely explanations: more people using pot, and more patients fessing up about using pot to doctors because it’s legal.
